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DAE switch from hand-cranking a 1 inch die to a cheap arbor press and never look back?
For my first 200 pins I was leaning on the handle of a $30 hand press from a craft store and my right shoulder was toast after every batch. Last weekend a guy at the Phoenix swap meet let me try his arbor press with a 3D printed die holder, and I knocked out 150 pins in about 40 minutes with zero shoulder pain. The pressure is way more even too, so my 1 inch pins stopped getting those little dents around the rim. I know some folks swear by the fancy $200 auto-feed machines, but honestly this $60 setup plus the printed holder feels like plenty. Anyone here running an arbor press, and did you have to shim the die or did it sit flat out of the box?
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veraramirez7d ago
Arbor presses work fine for a while but that even pressure you love is because the ram is doing all the work, not your arm, and the die holder takes all that force. Cheap presses have soft ram tips that start to mushroom after a few thousand pins, and then you get wobble you can't shim out no matter what you try. My die sat flat at first but after about 800 pins I had to add a washer just to keep things lined up straight.
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