guitar plate press
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
If you cut it to small you can always nail another piece on the end, but if you cut it to big... then what the hell you gonna do?
Steven