Tobacco Press and Blood Meridian

[Alligator Gar]

Pressure plate in place . Note the superb work on the weight including the cork bottom that is so important. The weight is really heavy! (sorry for the fuzzy picture).

Why the cork?

[NeverBend]

Pressure plate in place . Note the superb work on the weight including the cork bottom that is so important. The weight is really heavy! (sorry for the fuzzy picture).

Why the cork?

The cork absorbs the shock of metal hitting metal. The weight 'cushes' rather than crashes when it contacts the pressure plate. EmperorZurg perhaps could add specifics from his design notes.

@Nature, many thanks for re-posting the pics, pixel by pixel.

@BryGuySC, I've been schnooking around with Chrome for months and your solution sounds like it may have legs, thank you. I'll test it later and if it does then you guys may, by the number of pics posted, come to regret Bryan's sage advice. What do you do in IT?

@EmperorZurg, thanks for the advice with Gmail/Chrome. I emailed myself an image from my tablet, opened it and dragged and dropped (because Chrome doesn't play nice with Copy/Paste).

Altogether I suspect that you guys provided a solution all around, from the problem at hand, to the reasons why and the ongoing solution. Impressive.

[BryGuySC]

@BryGuySC, I've been schnooking around with Chrome for months and your solution sounds like it may have legs, thank you. I'll test it later and if it does then you guys may, by the number of pics posted, come to regret Bryan's sage advice. What do you do in IT?

I do end-user and network support for a company of about 150 employees.

That is a sweet press!

I have had the most success with photobucket. I have the app on my phone, so I open the pic in the gallery then upload to photobucket.
I open the Photobucket site in my browser, click the photo, then click the Direct link, and just paste that link in the body of my post here.

[Emperor Zurg]

The cork absorbs the shock of metal hitting metal. The weight 'cushes' rather than crashes when it contacts the pressure plate. EmperorZurg perhaps could add specifics from his design notes.

I put cork on there for a variety of reasons, none of which are all that insightful to the art of tobacco pressing given that I really didn't know why the press was needed or how it was to be used. Pete just said he needed a gravity press to hold a couple ounces of tobacco to simulate tin pressure so he could see what a blend was going to taste like after it had been packed into a tin for a while.

So for the record, here's the 'why' behind it...
1) I had a scrap of cork gasket material on hand (for that matter, the entire press was made of various shorts and drops)
2) I didn't know if the weight would be used as a hammer or not but it made sense to dampen the 'clack' if it was.
3) It's easier to tear the cork off if it's not wanted than to come up with a piece to glue on later
4) I figured Mrs. Bend would kill Mr. Bend if if he gouged up the counter with that heavy weight.
5) I didn't want the weight to scratch up the follower plate.

That's pretty much it.

[NeverBend]

I do end-user and network support for a company of about 150 employees.

That is a sweet press!

I have had the most success with photobucket. I have the app on my phone, so I open the pic in the gallery then upload to photobucket.
I open the Photobucket site in my browser, click the photo, then click the Direct link, and just paste that link in the body of my post here.

I've used Photobucket with a desktop but the Chromebook won't recognize it (at least where file exchange is concerned). I'll try it again under a Foxfire alias.

I put cork on there for a variety of reasons, none of which are all that insightful to the art of tobacco pressing given that I really didn't know why the press was needed or how it was to be used. Pete just said he needed a gravity press to hold a couple ounces of tobacco to simulate tin pressure so he could see what a blend was going to taste like after it had been packed into a tin for a while.

So for the record, here's the 'why' behind it...
1) I had a scrap of cork gasket material on hand (for that matter, the entire press was made of various shorts and drops)
2) I didn't know if the weight would be used as a hammer or not but it made sense to dampen the 'clack' if it was.
3) It's easier to tear the cork off if it's not wanted than to come up with a piece to glue on later
4) I figured Mrs. Bend would kill Mr. Bend if if he gouged up the counter with that heavy weight.
5) I didn't want the weight to scratch up the follower plate.

That's pretty much it.

Holy smoke, your planning of the press is evident when I use it but you saved my marriage too! (Am I supposed to hate you for that?)

[Nature]

I've used Photobucket with a desktop but the Chromebook won't recognize it (at least where file exchange is concerned). I'll try it again under a Foxfire alias.

I have had the same problem with Photobucket on a Windows tablet running windows-8 for "Surface". I have to go to the "Help" screen of PhB and find "remove mobile view". The link for this doesn't otherwise show. Even though the photobucket site still doesn't support my browser, it works.