One of my neighbors had a yardsale yesterday and one of the items he had was a small fly press that had suffered a serious break in that the front of the base was broken off roughly at the axis of the ram or through the pass through hole - the broken off part is gone. He wanted $10 for it and it may have been worth that much as scrap metal but I know I could never bring myself to scrap something like that. Considering the price that folks are getting for working ones - $1,000 plus, it may be worth repairing if it could be made strong enough. I think I would preheat it in a fire and then weld with nirod ( I have a bunch that I scored from either my local dump or scrapyard - I forget which so no cost there) using a block of steel as the replacement part. My thoughts would be to planish each pass and then put the whole thing back in the fire when done and let it cool slowly. What do you folks think?