This pic can't depict just how close the bottle came to launching, nor how the steel beam collapsed under moderate stress.

Ill suggest if you decide to buy a Harbor Freight press, that you weld/box the beams and reweld every joint

 

I don't believe the jack would have "launched" in this situation.
Maybe it would have "spit" out and then dropped.
But still, nobody wants a clobbered toe, even.

 

one rule i have with tools is dont buy anything from harbor freight that can kill me.

jack-stands, presses, anything that plugs in and the like are banned.

i do own their floor-jack, engine crane, and some sockets which have treated me ok.

glad you averted injury, and i hope they make it right with you

 

Ok, you can have my jack just as it sit free, and try to outspit it. Just sign release first.

Even at my age, I can still piss standing up and not wet my toes.

My neighbor back in Virginia lost his brother to a 100 ton hammer forge when it spit out a chunk o steel and took off whole top of his head in Navy ship yard....closed casket.

I posted this as a warning to all here in an effort to help them prevent injury or death. If you think you are bullet proof, then post pics of the dents in your chest and the bent steel at your feet.

 

Ok, you can have my jack just as it sit free, and try to outspit it. Just sign release first.
. . .

Would it be cheating if I avoid the potential trajectory path?

Slow down, I'm not trying to start a spitting contest.
It was just a casual observation that I didn't see "launch" potential with this particular setup - not that at times there isn't.
But this time we've got folded low-carbon steel and incompressible oil - where's the energy for a launch?
My point was that I saw toe crushing as a more likely danger when this crumbled.
Granted, moot point, because I suppose that a whack to the toe could hurt dang near as much as a jack to the chest.

The point that should be made here is that the ideal is to keep completely clear of the "firing line" during any operation.
For example, with any setup one might weigh the reasonable potentials for failure and -for example- might calculate to keep feet "here" and chest "there" and then should the dreaded failure happen, hopefully it's a non-event to operator.

That's all, I wasn't saying I could dodge a launching jack. :waving:

FWIW, typically with any significant pressing operation ("first time" always considered as very significant) once setup is done and enough pressure has been applied to tighten things up... I'm gone. Look for me and my soft sternum crouched under the staircase with the "remote" in hand.

 

Hey, I'll admit that a year ago after I bought this press, I bragged about it here and elsewhere, and bought a set of armor steel arbor plates that cost more than the press, and also the Harbor Freight air/hydraulic bottle jack recommend for it by Harbor Freight....I invested over 500 bucks in this press, and the FIRST time I used it to bend 1/4" four inch wide mild steel plate, it almost killed me.

I have a shop full of Harbor freight stuff....Plasma cutter, huge compressor, air drier, 10 grinders, countless wheels, gas torches, hand tools, power tools, measuring tools, floor jacks, jack stands, and who knows what else....

I am NOT anti-Harbor Freight, I'm just attempting to show fellow users possible weakness and failure in hopes it might spare them injury.

 

So the press is built so that the jack does not center on the web of the beam ?
Poor planning or quality control.

 

Nope, jack can't help but center in beams when installed....It's just that one beam decided to collapse just before the other.

The point it that the press is made from substandard steel and the welds are iffy.

 

If you do get some satisfaction from Harbor Freight...hopefully a new press...keep your air over hydraulic jack, but lose the jack mounted return springs. They aren't needed in this application and may have played some minor part in the problem is they or the plate they are attached to kept the jack's ram from fully seating in the upper mount. The springs on the press itself work well without needing the extra help. After that, you would be well served to rework the table, both by boxing the channel iron on both front and back as well as reducing the play in the 'ears' that go around the columns on each side...it will help your bending by having less flex going on in the column/'ears'.

 

I fully understand what you are saying about how it appears the jack return springs and spring attachment plate seem to prevent the upper jack ram from centering and fully engaging inside the provided "cup" on the press,,,but trust me, it ain't so.

I was VERY careful to examine how the bottle jack fit in place of the old one and there simply is no way to install it off center.....This failure truly is a case where one side of the dual beam failed when equally loaded with opposite side, and well below it's advertised load capacity....The orange welded on cup is designed to accept jack shaft and can't help but center it between the C channel beams-it's a tight fit, so no way not to center it.

Many here have same press and same air/hydraulic bottle jack....Mine failed.

I don't care if Harbor Freight replaces it or not.,,,not my point.....My point is that you here be aware and pay close attention as you press stuff and NOT focus just on object you are pressing, but instead the whole machine, and STOP if you see deformation before it reaches out and gets you.

 

Mine did the same thing while using a dimple die on some 1/8" plate. I went to the metal yard found some real C-channel that was the same size as the harbor freight formed channel. I cut out the old mangled piece and replaced it with real C-channel. No problems since.

If you look at the press you will see the legs and upper cross over are all formed/rolled channel. The bed/table and the tiny piece above where the bottle jack presses against and the follower that the bottle jack sits on are real C-channel. It's much thicker and stronger than the formed junk they used in half the press.

 

Exactly what I suspected...cheap Chinese steel...thanks

 

Just to reaffirm my trust in Harbor Freight stuff, I'ma headed there tomorrow ( if I sober up) and buy their new improved 20 ton press...AND a couple of their cast iron box wood stoves.

A few months after I bought this press last year, they came out with a better one for same price....It has thicker steel and bolts together and has STEEL arbor plates vise cast iron plates.

I'll show these pics and more to their manager and accept whatever he allows toward new one, where if he pisses me off, I'll unload this one on his front porch and greet all who attempt to enter there....but I doubt it will come to that.

Hey, go check out my thread in Mechanic's Park I'm building a really cool old CJ Jeep for Louisiana Mudfest, YEHAW!!!!!!

 

You will discover that the ram return springs on the air/hydraulic jack are necessary compared to the OEM hand pump jack without springs, especially when used in their presses.

Their press comes with two return springs that serve to "attempt" to raise the lower press beam when you relieve pressure, but you usually have to use both hands to raise it and recompress the OEM manual pump jack bottle jack that has no return springs.

Once installed, the air/hydraulic jack return springs relower the ram, as the press return springs raise the press beam without effort and keep the bottle ram fully engaged inside the orange welded on cup and fully centered. ...the air/hydraulic ram head fits VERY tightly inside the orange steel cup much tighter than the OEM manual jack, so it simply cannot become uncentered......It is a good design, just lacking in material quality and decent welds.

 

I'll head out to the shop when it warms up and check on the springs. I may have either replaced the press springs with higher rate units from the scrap yard or have an older model with stronger spring rates, but the springs on the jack itself were ****canned as a nuisance.

 

It would be interesting to do some further failure analysis on this. I have no doubt that you placed your equipment as was intended by the manufacturer but I suspect the failure is not the steel itself so much as it is the design and possibly the workmanship in the press construction. While your jack was in the centering cup, have you measured the placement of the cup to determine if it was actually centered in the press as well as the push pin under the jack? The slop in the sliding member may have also contributed, allowing the push plate to cant off sideways a bit. Is there any spatter or other foreign material under the head of the jack that could have unbalanced the line of stress in the top of the press frame? Perhaps as WyoRoy suggested some more positive method to prevent twisting of the push plate be in order as well. There are at least 3 possible pivot points that could contribute to the failure. Hope HF does right by you and you can get back to your jeep build soon.

 

Yep, that press has more pivot points than a double jointed girlfriend I had in my youth... but nowhere near as fun.

 

you were real lucky. whenever i'm tempted to set foot in a hf store these scenarios play in the back of my head.

 

Two questions. #1- A "swag" decal appears on the top beam in the first pic yet doesn't appear to still be there in the 2nd. #2- the jack doesn't appear to be centered in the cup. Did this occur after the fact?
I've purchased quite a few HF items and always tell myself upon purchase. "Always remember what you paid for this so when it breaks or the smoke leaks out you won't be quite as angry". One of the best things I've bought from them for this 67 yr old body is the 1,000 lb cap hyd lift table. The most I've had on it is my 650 lb portable welder. It had no problem and was very stable w/ the welder centered on it.
Mike

 

Yes, first pic shows the SWAG decal, but I removed it and snapped another to show harbor freight so there would be no misunderstanding.

And yes, in both pics, you see the ram is lowered below the cup, because I was attempting to remove the bottle jack when I decided to stop and take pics. Trust me, it is no easy affair to get jack out due to spring pressure that pulls upward on travel beam...it takes two people to push down against beam springs to remove jack from upper cup....You cannot simply loosen springeye bolts enuff to remove jack because they are not long enuff .

If ram had been out of cup as pictured, the cup would be smashed flat on that edge.

 

A 650 lbs. "portable" welder? I bet people say "YES,SIR! RIGHT AWAY, SIR!" to you. Haha.

 

see, things like that are why I bought a used Dake 50H I've had it loaded to 48t and nothing deflects at all.

--Wintermute

 

The only item ever purchased at HF was a set of Rol-Loc discs for my air tools. Glad I held out, as irishfixit and others recommended, for a *used* Dake or OTC shop press via CL. Stoked with my OTC 20T Press. **** Made in USA ****

 

Well, spent most of the day after it warmed up building a warm closet out in the shop for paint, weed killer and my water cooled TIG. Took a look at my Harbor Freight press with the 20 ton air over hydraulic conversion from Harbor Freight and the return springs and spring plate are long ago ****canned as useless and in the way. Stock springs in the press handle the job easily. Could have been two reasons for your press springs being insufficient...the bending brake not designed for the press at time of manufacture makes the set-up too heavy or your press is too new and even lighter built than mine with weak springs. Sorta betting on the first. I've done reverse bends on 1/2" X 2" mild steel with no problem when making one of the arms on my Hossfeld bender during a hyd. conversion. Might be able to see the double bent arm in the shot above...hard to tell from the thumbnails.

Also had little to no problem placing the conversion air over hyd. jack on the press. Just loosened the springs leaving enough to still contact the threads and placed the jack nearly into position...needed just a bit of pull to extend the springs downward enough, but no more than one-handed.

 

UPDATED with pic of what caused failure.

I reassembled the press and really looked it over closely, and BANG, there it was !

The upper welded on orange cup designed to center the ram was welded on almost 3/4" off center toward the side that bent.
It's not really something you would think to check when you first buy the press, yaknow?

The lady at Harbor Freight took good care of me today once she saw the pictures. She told me I could have new style press at cost, and additional 30% on anything in store AFTER sale price, so I took full advantage, where I go me my 4th fantastic 7 drawer red hanging side cabinet for 100 bucks, plus a few other things .

The new style press is MUCH better quality and at same price as old orange one.

 

UPDATED with pic of what caused failure.

I reassembled the press and really looked it over closely, and BANG, there it was !

The upper welded on orange cup designed to center the ram was welded on almost 3/4" off center toward the side that bent.
It's not really something you would think to check when you first buy the press, yaknow?

View attachment 1003591

The lady at Harbor Freight took good care of me today once she saw the pictures. She told me I could have new style press at cost, and additional 30% on anything in store AFTER sale price, so I took full advantage, where I go me my 4th fantastic 7 drawer red hanging side cabinet for 100 bucks, plus a few other things .

The new style press is MUCH better quality and at same price as old orange one.

Just being a Monday morning quarter back here. I am not surprised that you found that off center, it was the first thought that passed thru my mind when I saw this post. The indicator for me was the web did not look like it was stressed. Decided is could have been the way the picture was taken and left it at that.

Anyway you liking the new press, looks good in the shots.

 

Pretty much what most people expected as far as the cup being off center. No big surprise to me, most of the stuff like that I looked at was almost never lined up correctly.

Glad they took care of you.

 

These things weigh 125 lbs, and are super high quality....I have 4 of them and either slide them under my work benches or hang on side of my rollarounds.

They are reinforced and predrilled for casters, all the drawers come with precut lining, and they now ship with 4 barrel keys graning you better control over who in shop can access which cabinets.....If you have multiple matching cabinets like me, you can easily swap drawers around to where one box is all deep drawwers, and another all shallow drawers, or just move them around above or below each other in same box.

So yeah, when she told me I could have an additional 30% even including sale prices, LOL, I spent over 400 bucks and came home happy camper

 

Note differences.

THe new upper beam is now constructed of true channel iron and NOT the cheap bent channel like my old one...And also, the ram cup is perfectly centered and now welded to 5/8" thick plate steel....The new uprights are now also made from true channel iron, and the cross legs are much heavier angle iron and predrilled for stem casters.

AND, the new arbor plate beam assembly includes end straps that prevent it for dropping off pins from becoming off center left to right.

Plus!...it also comes with thick pate steel arbor plates instead of the old cast iron dangerous plates that often shattered underload.....All for same price as old press.

All that said, I'ma going to sand the paint off all welds and grind as required and reweld every one just for grins and because I got nothing better to do

 

All that said, I'ma going to sand the paint off all welds and grind as required and reweld every one just for grins and because I got nothing better to do

While you're at it, you might as well cut out a couple web stiffeners and weld them into the beam right above where the jack is.

 

The pictures feel unusual to me, it sort of like Dr Smith in Lost in Space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcy81Qp0xso

 

Is there going to be a "deal" on Craigslist for a slightly used orange press frame soon?

 

NO, absolutely NOT!

I'ma gonna paint that thing dark gray and sell it as a new HF press !

Actually, most of that old channel is gonna end up under some mud truck

 

THe new upper beam is now constructed of true channel iron and NOT the cheap bent channel like my old one.

That old one looks like channel to me. Isn't the toe of the channel thicker then the edge ? If it was formed it would be the same thickness if at the bend .

 

Nope the upper beams on the old orange press, along with the side uprights are bent steel, NOT true channel iron...The new gray press uses true channel iron.

HOWEVER!, one thing I DON'T like about new press is the travel beam that the bottle jack sits on is NO LONGER true channel iron, but seeing as how all dimensions are the same, I'll just reclaim my old one and swap it in on new press.

If you examine the new gray press, look close at the travel beam the jack rests on!...Those idiots decided to greatly improve the rest of the press but went really cheap on that one item.

I'll post some pics showing both later.