# Harbor Freight Press Lift



## chip maker (Sep 27, 2015)

This was an almost all day update as I was building it as I went along. I had the idea a while ago so purchased the cable but everything else I had in house. This turned out to be a very simple fix to lift the table to different heights. I no that a 12 ton press isn't all that heavy but this makes it a lot less work. I haven't completely finished because I still want to come up with a better stop that just the small 1/4in bar stock. I'm going to sleep on that tonight and may be by morning I'll have an answer. I hope that someone else can use this idea because it was easy and very inexpensive to put together. Thanks


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## johnlesar (Sep 28, 2015)

Just like the Dake press at the shop I work at.


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## middle.road (Sep 28, 2015)

Anything goes when making it easier. The casters are a neat idea.
I need to do something like that with the table on my Duro drill press.
It always binds when you're trying to raise it and that puts a bit too much stress on the ol' back. 
I've got an old boat trailer winch I may someday adapt to it.
If I ever get another drill press it WILL have rack & pinion left on it. Ah, the things we learn as we go along.

_Dan


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## davidh (Sep 28, 2015)

nice problem solver ya are. . .


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## ch2co (Sep 28, 2015)

middle.road said:


> Anything goes when making it easier. The casters are a neat idea.
> I need to do something like that with the table on my Duro drill press.
> It always binds when you're trying to raise it and that puts a bit too much stress on the ol' back.
> I've got an old boat trailer winch I may someday adapt to it.
> ...




Dan
I've got an old craftsman drillpress that I plan to do this very thing on. Same problem, its not the drillpress table, its my antiquated old back.

Chuck the grumpy old guy


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## middle.road (Sep 28, 2015)

ch2co said:


> Dan
> I've got an old craftsman drillpress that I plan to do this very thing on. Same problem, its not the drillpress table, its my antiquated old back.
> 
> Chuck the grumpy old guy



Heck, even (20) years ago when I picked up this press, the table was a PITA.
Of course there's the matter of making it worse when I would mount the X-Y table to it. 

_Dan


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## ch2co (Sep 28, 2015)

See!  If you'd gotten an X,Y,Z  table to mount on it, you wouldn't need to stress out your back!  

Chuck the grumpy old guy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## hdtech (Sep 30, 2015)

Very very cool idea


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## reece (Mar 2, 2016)

Looks good!  I will be making one these for my press soon.


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## roadie33 (Mar 2, 2016)

How do you like the little 12 Ton from Harbor Freight?

I've been looking at them and can't decide on the 12 or 20 Ton.


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## FOMOGO (Mar 2, 2016)

Nice job. Really need to do that on my 20T. Mike


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## chip maker (Mar 2, 2016)

I think that the 12ton will do what I need it too. Also when I purchased it I had a coupon and the 12ton was only $99.00 I couldn't put the steel together to make one for that price. I was also on the fence over the 20ton but guess you already know how that played out. !!!! I know many on this site don't seem to care much for some of the HF stuff but I guess I have just been lucky. I had also purchased their large tile saw and it works very good except for having to get a better blade but I knew that going in so wasn't a surprise.  This lift works good and am glad I did it as now I have the lift part shimmed and it doesn't rattle around. Just made it a lot easer raising the darn thing with one hand instead of two.


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