Clarke 10ton bench hydraulic press.

[Mike Carter]

Hi All- nice to find this forum, I hope it will be really helpful as I struggle with my late-in-life attempts to develop some resemblance of engineering skills!

Anyway part of this quest has been the acquisition of equipment followed by the skills to use it! In this sense I did acquire a used Clarke Machine Mart (Harbour Freight type) 10 ton bench press. Mine is model CSA10BB. However, when I got it, it was lacking a handle. I didn't think getting one of these would be a problem, but it seems that handles are only supplied with the pump- making it uneconomic to buy one. However, it should be a fairly simple lathe job to make a new one... apart from the fact that I cant determine what to what size (21 or 22 mm I think?) and pitch (?tpi) the handle should be threaded. I have the socket into which it will screw but I cant get a thread gauge in to see what size it is. At these sizes there are quite a lot of thread variants. Could anyone (who has a handle) please check it and enlighten me!- or maybe let me know how to determine the thread size on an interior thread?

Many thanks for your help in advance
Strength to your elbow
Mike

 

[mangocrazy]

Could you not take your thread pitch gauge down to a Machine Mart store and surreptitiously check the pitch of the thread on the handle? Or even be bold and ask them... At a wild guess, I'd say it's probably a BSP thread, but that is only a guess.

 

[Mike Carter]

Well sadly I dont have a local machine mart- you'd think I did living in the SE, but the nearest one is across London! But its a good ides if they have one out.

 

[mangocrazy]

If you can't get an answer from someone else on the forum (very unlikely), I'll try and remember to stick a TP gauge in my pocket next time I visit MM. There's one only a mile or so away from me in Sheffield, not that that is much comfort to you.

Have you thought of emailing their Tech dept.? If they don't supply one separately they might be prepared to tell you.

 

[Mr shiney]

if its the same as mine its a 1.5mm pitch thread on a piece off 21mm tube.

 

[Rudi McAnichal]

Does the pump handle really need to be threaded, or could any plain length of rod or pipe be pushed into the socket to do the job? Perhaps with some tape wrapped around to make it a closer fit?

 

[Mr shiney]

Does the pump handle really need to be threaded, or could any plain length of rod or pipe be pushed into the socket to do the job? Perhaps with some tape wrapped around to make it a closer fit?

Its threaded and not really an issue to make a new part instead of bodging it?

 

[Mike Carter]

Great, thanks for all the help and advice guys, good positive experience for my first post. I will make up a 21 mm 1.5 and see if that fits. I would prefer a threaded handle and its easy enough to make one so I'll try it. Mangocrazy, thanks for the offer to check in your mm... V kind and much appreciated please let me know if you do find out. I did contact MM and also the Clarke replacement line but MM just referred me to the parts suppliers and they wouldn't tell me... Dont think they knew!
Cheers all
Mike

 

[Mike Carter]

Hi all, just to complete this post, yes it was 21 mm 1.5 pitch.
Thanks all
Mike

 

[Mr shiney]

Hi all, just to complete this post, yes it was 21 mm 1.5 pitch.
Thanks all
Mike

You are welcome.