Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:35:48 -0400
Reply-To: Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Ken Wilford <kenwilfy@COMCAST.NET>
Subject: Re: A 'real' press costs thousands.
In-Reply-To: <9584FBCFE1874D75BDA32147768A7A84@MAINCOMPUTER>
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I looked around at presses for about six months. I went to a place that
had a warehouse full of used presses that were made in America. However
I couldn't get my hands on one for less than $1500. These were used,
beat up, worn units, but I was assured that they were so much better
than the "Chinese Crap" out there. I went to Harbor Freight and checked
out their presses. They were affordable to me and all a press is is
some steel with a hydraulic jack. Not that complicated really. I
bought a new one for less than $300. It has paid for itself several
times over at this point. It works very well and I have no complaints
other than if you don't use it for a while the jack gets kinda cranky
(it will not want to pump until you jack on it for a while). However if
I wanted to I could go to Sears and buy a new bottle jack and have no
gripes but it hasn't bugged me that bad yet. If you are buying this
press for your home shop, you really can't go wrong. If you are buying
it for a small shop where you are going to use it once or twice a month
it is fine. If I was using it every day I would probably go with the
really expensive ones since they would probably hold up better in the
long run. Just my opinion.
Ken Wilford
John 3:16
www.vanagain.com
Courtney Hook wrote:
> I would have to agree to disagree on the term cheap chinese, mixed with
> crap. A very good friend of mine has a brother who now works for a large
> chinese aluminum extrusion company. This company uses state of the art
> computer controlled equipment that most companies in Canada and the
> U.S. can
> only dream about having. To say the products from China are crap, is a
> blanket statement. Perhaps the Harbor Freight tool is chinese, but when I
> looked at one last week, it was a well made bolted together piece of
> equipment with a standard hyd. jack used to power it. For what you
> pay, it
> is a suitable piece of equipment. I'm sure the quality of the steel is as
> good as U.S. or Canuck steel. I own many Craftsman and even Snap-on tools
> that are guaranteed for life, but are made in China. Their equipment for
> production is much newer than ours in most cases, as our N.A.
> equipment for
> rolling steel and producing iron are relics of the 1920's and 30's
> when WE
> were king of the hill. We rebuilt Germany and Japan after the war with
> modern equipment, to the future detriment of ourselves. Perhaps a
> simplistic
> evaluation, but probably quite accurate.
> Courtney
>
>
>
>
>
>> At 10:38 AM 8/20/2008, Roger Sisler wrote...
>>> Not in China
>>
>> He said "real" press, not a CCC (Cheap Chinese Crap) one.
>>
>
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