I'm the owner and founder of a company called Say It With Beef that makes floral arrangements ("BROquets") our of beef jerky. Because my business is a bit . . . unique, I've had to build a lot of custom equipment to help speed up production.
One thing I just finished a few weeks ago is my new jerky press which we use to stamp out the needed shapes of jerky. I built what is basically a Welles juice press using 304 stainless with some "jerky specific" additions. The thing works beautifully except for one thing: the bottle jack is SLOOOOOW. I've got a 4 ton Strongway bottle jack (one of the few brands that uses non-lead paint), and it's plenty strong to cut the jerky, but it takes forever to pump it up to get work done.
That got me thinking about pneumatics. They're fast, pretty quiet, and would likely generate enough force to cut through the jerky. To get a rough guess of how much force I would need, I took some of my jerky, put it in the cutter, and figured out how many slices I could cut using my body weight. Doing the math, I would need about 650 lbs to cut through five pieces of jerky at a time (what my press is designed to cut).
However, I know pretty much nothing about pneumatics other than that there are single and double acting cylinders and the force available is derived from the bore size, rod diameter, and available air pressure. I know nothing about reliable brands, what factor I should use to over-design and have enough available force, etc. Any suggestions? I've been looking at 3" bore cylinders by American Cylinder, but I'd like some feedback from someone who knows what they're talking about before I go spending the money.
Thanks for your help!
One thing I just finished a few weeks ago is my new jerky press which we use to stamp out the needed shapes of jerky. I built what is basically a Welles juice press using 304 stainless with some "jerky specific" additions. The thing works beautifully except for one thing: the bottle jack is SLOOOOOW. I've got a 4 ton Strongway bottle jack (one of the few brands that uses non-lead paint), and it's plenty strong to cut the jerky, but it takes forever to pump it up to get work done.
That got me thinking about pneumatics. They're fast, pretty quiet, and would likely generate enough force to cut through the jerky. To get a rough guess of how much force I would need, I took some of my jerky, put it in the cutter, and figured out how many slices I could cut using my body weight. Doing the math, I would need about 650 lbs to cut through five pieces of jerky at a time (what my press is designed to cut).
However, I know pretty much nothing about pneumatics other than that there are single and double acting cylinders and the force available is derived from the bore size, rod diameter, and available air pressure. I know nothing about reliable brands, what factor I should use to over-design and have enough available force, etc. Any suggestions? I've been looking at 3" bore cylinders by American Cylinder, but I'd like some feedback from someone who knows what they're talking about before I go spending the money.
Thanks for your help!