I'm looking to make a guitar press for forming laminate top archtop guitar plates. The video referenced below uses steel U-channel which I feel is probably way overkill. But I'm looking for ideas for other ways to do it (also at almost 62 I don't feel like lifting a steel unit up onto and off the workbench when I can probably get away with something much lighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VnOp0a7g0I

The upright members can be replaced with 4x4 fir, the column strength of this stuff calculates out to about 4 tons for a 2 ft column.

My question relates more to the bottom and especially the top cross member which will have to handle the pressure on the bottle jack without rupturing. I'm thinking 2 possibilities:

1. 3 pieces of 4x4 fir glued and screwed together something like the attached pic. (total size will be about 4"high x 12"wide x 28"length nominal, the upright members will be attach inside the "U" cutouts in the ends)

2 a torsion table made with (4) 0.75"x3"x28" pieces of MDF with 0.75 inch MDF skins top and bottom

Thanks,
Steven