This is unacceptable… Both bases for Hydraulic Press are bent beyond the welds
If you break something, please fess up to it so we can fix it but this goes beyond normal breakage, IMO. If it starts to bend, STOP
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This is old news, also we are not even sure if that is Steel, best we can tell it is some sort of foam steel invented in china.
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It was a little bent last month, it is at least twice as bad now.
I understand your feelings about this, the fact is the “steel” that came with this press is extremely soff.
This is what some of us refer to as “foam steel” it is so porous and light. The steel is so soft in those plates, when we first got the press someone put a penny on it and tried to squash it. The penny didn’t flatten, the “steel” yielded to a zinc based penny and the Lincoln Memorial image was clearly embossed into the plate rather than flatten out. If you look at the two plates you’ll see one of them still has the the image.
These should be thrown away as they are unsafe.
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I thought it was also known as chinesium, but that might be in bad form now days.
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Foam steel is a specific type of chinesium.
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Are there other plates that can be used, or is the entire press completely unusable?
We need to buy some steel plates, 1.5-2" thick and weld then weld the plate on the bottom. The press works, the plates are just crap.
Which committee owns/manages that press?
I believe automotive since Brandon bought it when he was chair and is actually used the most by them.
Get ready to gasp at the price of good arbor press plates:
These would probably work fine, main thing is they are steel not cast iron.
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These prices are insanity, I can go the scrapyard and get some plates to make up if you like.
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Well, zinc does work harden. 
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The set of four steel plates isn’t that bad as they’ve probably been hardened.
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Could we use new press plates? yes.
The fact still remains that whoever bent the ones that came with the press clearly didn’t know what they were doing. Probably the same folks that alter the machine shop’s precise tools to the point of being non serviceable.
bricks of steel or iron are close to worthless for press operations - the better plates have V notches and half circle cutouts in the sides for various operations like shaft bearings, and more.
NO more horror freight crapola please - Hein Warner does make some nice things, thanks David - but can we find something more reasonable so that when they get drop or destroyed it won’t hurt as much?
Thanks
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All the plates had notches. Was looking only for ones that stated steel not cast iron.
Will keep looking. We can get thick steel plate, but cutting with plasma isn’t possible and machining that much steel with a mill sans coolant will be challenge.
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I saw the “Hein-Werner” brand and felt the heart skip a beat before I saw the price…
They make automotive floor jacks that last to infinity and are a little more expensive than Northern Tool or Sears (gee I wonder why?)
I have a couple of industrial / automotive tool sales to go to in the next few weeks and I’'l look for plates and other items.
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