Built this little manual hydraulic press a couple months back and it has come in handy quite a few times. Used it to press form some candle holders and would like to make some other dies for it soon works well and I only have about 30$ into it.

Nice work... I am thinking of building one myself. If i am seeing yours correctly...you've basically inverted the working end of the jack so that the piece of tubing/pipe attached to the baseplate essentially becomes the new "ram" ? How much does that top angle iron flex? I was thinking of using channel iron for mine but i do like that design....

Thanks

The top isn't actually angle iron it is a piece of 4" I beam with the top flange cut off, it doesn't flex at all. Kinda hard to come across free I beam but you could weld 2 pieces of angle iron together to get a t shaped piece like that. The bottom is also 4" I beam and the sides are 4" c channel. And yea under the jack there is a piece of 1/4" plate that the springs are attached to the jack just sits in there and the springs hold it in place. The ram is a piece of solid 1 1/2" shaft welded to the 1/4" plate but you could use heavy pipe.

If you use channel iron for the top brace I would support the center with webbing because the jack creates a very all point load on the top brace.

just thought of that

If i used channel I was gonna have the top section be doubled up and standing on edge , coped into the vertical....which would in essence act like beam or tubing depending how it was arranged. You are right though ...some gussets wouldnt hurt. What size is your jack?

Only a 4 ton but the press could probably handle a bit bigger im kinda on the lookout for a 6 ton on sale