1957 Greenerd 3 Ton Arbor Press

When glancing through random online Craigslist/FB Marketplace ads, I occasionally run across something I need. Yes, you read that right, "need." This time probably wasn't one of those times, but this new addition is something I've wanted. It's a Greenerd 3-ton arbor press. What's an arbor press, you say? When these things were invented over 100 years ago, they were used to press arbors into things, like pulleys or whatever. An arbor is just a round rod like an axle or spindle, and it gets pressed into something like a hub or pulley. Thus the name "arbor press." You can probably guess these presses are used for a multitude of jobs besides just arbors.

This next photo below is what the ad showed. The poor thing was left outside to deteriorate in the weather. When I showed up to the guy's house, the ram was stuck, but with a little bit of persuasion of the handle, it freed up some. You can see the top of the ram bore has a piece broken out. I might just have to braze that up, although it doesn't affect the operation at all.

The press does need some help. The handle is currently a piece of pipe that is also too short. The handle should be a solid bar that is 24 inches long so you can get good leverage. The press is also missing its slotted table plate that has several different-size cutouts for supporting small-diameter items. The press did come with a 3/4-inch piece of plate steel that I can use to make the table plate if I so desired.

I found a lot of information on Greenerd presses on VintageMachinery.org. Below are several images I copied. These first four are from a 1929 catalog, so Greenerd has been making these things for a long time. I'm guessing mine is around 1957 vintage.

You could get a bench-mount press or one on a floor stand. My press was originally mounted on a stand, as the base of mine isn't flat. If you look at the image below, the upper right press is a No. 3 on a stand, and the bottom of the press has a step up in the back that matches the contour of the stand. Mounting my press to a work bench won't be a problem as I'll just put a piece of wood under the back portion to take up the space.

The 1929 brochure shows that a No. 3 press weighed 140 pounds, and the cast iron stand was an additional 250 pounds.

This image below is interesting. It explains how someone can calculate the required tonnage needed to press a certain size steel shaft into a cast iron part if the interference press fit dimension and length is known.

Prices of the No. 3 press started out quite reasonable, $18 for the press and $14 for the stand. That was in 1917 though, 108 years ago. By 1956 the prices were $73 for the press and $65 for the stand. Less than 20 years later, 1974, prices were $210 for the No. 3 press and $117 for the stand. The early stand was cast iron and I'm guessing sometime in or around the 1970s they changed to a welded stand, as the 1974 stand price was about half what the press was, whereas the early cast iron stand was almost the same price as the press.

This last photo shows my new arbor press in place on my roll-around work bench in the shop. I unbolted the 26 pound table plate to get the weight down. I then lifted the press onto a section of Dad's old bee hive, then got a better grip to get the lump of cast iron onto the bench. Then I threw some penetration oil on the ram to loosen it up. It works much better now. I do still need to bolt this thing down.

If you've made it this far, I think it is fair that I tell you what I paid for this arbor press. The guy was asking $40 and I paid him that, which I think was a very good price. I didn't even want to try and dicker the price down.