[TheForge] HF 20 Ton Air Motors Jacks

[Vincent Nakovics]

Hi Guys,
    My experience with the one that I had went something like this. I used a 20 Ton Air over jack or motor, you know, and I also bought a 12 ton frame from HF. It was an experiment and I really didn't think the jacks would put out a true 20 ton. I believe it will put out 20 ton but that it is at the absolute maximum of it's capacity. I base this on the long ram 12 ton used with a 6 Ton shop crane unit. I will get to that in a minute. The 20 ton air over did bend the 12 ton frame, I added braces after seeing a slight bend to reinforce the top cross bar. After reinforcing it I never had a problem with it bending again. I did find that it really didn't have enough umph to do any real squashing. I intended on using it to flatten large rivet heads, but I felt that I could do it faster and easier by hand. 
     
      In comparison to my Electric drive Dake 25 Ton press, the 20 ton Air over jack paled. It could not cold punch past 3/16" though at 20 tons it should have been able to do 1/4". I may have done the math wrong, but the chart from some company on my office wall said the same. The 20 ton did hold pressure over night as I used it a few times to compress materials and to hold a couple of items together while the JB weld or glue set and hardened. For the money I was satisfied and had plans to use it for other things besides squashing rivet heads (1-1/8" Dia x 1" Ht).

  There is my experiment and comparison. Not scientific as I had only one of each to compare, but it is a comparison. 

Now for the crane story.
   
The 12 ton air 
over long ram I installed on a crane rated for 6 tons that had an 8 ton 
hand pump jack on it. I found that past 1/2 the length of the ram it 
strained at just over 6 tons. The test weight was 6,041lbs. Oh the HF 
crane started to buckle at the pressure point where the ram lifted. 
Reinforcement time, just to be safe. I never lifted that much weight 
again. I did lift regularly 5,750lbs. and the air jack did lift it, but slowly. I doubt it would lift 12 tons, but certainly it lifted 6 just fine, never got a heavy enough crane rig to test for more. For the money I was happy with its performance. 

That's my story.

See ya at the Forge!
Vince Nakovics
 
"It was done that way by the Master before, and the one before him, What need to write it down?"

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