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Foot Press Conversion

I set a lot of snaps for the cloth pads, nappies, snappy animals and training pants that I make. I used to put the snap press on a low table or the floor and use my weight to set the snaps. It hurt my hands when I did a lot of snaps so I rigged up a handle cover to make it softer. That was better but still not great.

Then I heard of a co-op doing a snap press buy which made the price a lot more reasonable, along with a bunch of snaps, so I got another press so I could have one set up dedicated to studs and the other for sockets. That was great and saved a fair bit of time as I no longer had to swap out the dies each time I went from one to the other.

It was still hard on the hands and shoulders. So when I stumbled on a tutorial on a diaper making forum for setting up a press to be operated by foot I was very interested. That tutorial explained how to use a sawhorse or workbench for the structure upon which the press was bolted.

I had two presses so I worked out another way to set them up that works very well for me. You can use a similar set up for a single snap press, of course, and continue to switch the dies as required. Or you can buy another press!

Tools that I used:

Hand drill (or electric drill) and bits a little larger than the diameter of the bolts
screw driver

Requirements:

Two snap presses ( makes no difference whether it is DK-93 or DK-98)
Rotating seat bar stool (found mine by the side of the road in a council clean up)
For the base - two pieces of 3" x 1" timber approx 1 yard long
For the pedal - one piece of timber about 70cm long - 2"x1" is fine but I used 3"x1" because that is what I had
A length of chain - long enough to go from the handle of the press to the floor.
Hook - a short piece of heavy wire say 8"/20cm (#8 fencing wire is good)
One hinge and screws to attach
One cup hook
Two bolts for each press (three is better) - long enough to go through the base of the press and the thickness of the stool
Nuts to fit the bolts

Method:

Attach the two base pieces of timber to the bottom of the feet of the bar stool. The base pieces extend forward so that I can place my stool on the front section to hold down the contraption so it doesn't tip over.
Bolt the snap presses onto the seat of the bar stool so that the handle is about level with the edge of the stool. I worked out where to place the press then drilled holes through the seat of the stool.
Attach the hinge onto one of the base pieces of timber and the other side onto the foot pedal.
Twist the wire into an S shape and hang it from the hole in the end of the handle of the snap press.
Hang the chain from the handle and then trace the path down to where you want the cup hook to be located. Make sure that it is far enough along the foot pedal timber that it doesn't scrape the seat.
Screw the cup hook into place.
Figure out the correct length of chain so that, when you press the pedal timber right down it squeezes the snap on properly. Try different links of the chain till you get the pressure right.