Phil,
You are a pretty resourceful guy, so the problems you may encounter won't be too bad, but those units are difficult to use as is. I think Mark Williams had one sitting outside his shop in Hampton....and never used it. I have had enough dealings with you to know that you will take my post not as a negative, but as a stimulus to create a really great ( and proper) press for your students.
I would suggest taking a good look at rebuilding it as a standard H-frame unit.The cylinder and parts are all good, but used as is it may well be too slow and finicky to place 25 tons of force in 2-4 sq.in. of steel. You are going to need to move 11-16GPM through the cylinder to get enough speed to do forging and damascus drawing. The current pump may be fine ( but I doubt it), but at 1750 RPM it only will push half the rated GPM. Jim Batson's book on building hydraulic presses is a great resource. Lots of great math tables and charts.
I know that there are people who use a similar press for blade work, but there are people who use bottle jack presses,too. They may work, but there is a lot of inefficiency.
The biggest drawback is that the unit is made to produce a high pressure, spread out over a large area. This is great for pressing molds,pressing large bearings, laminating things ( home made MyCarta?), and squeezing the air out of Space Bags filled with sweaters and blankets. The problem comes when you try to concentrate all that force in one small spot on a piece of hot steel. Unless the die is placed very rigidly in the perfect center of force, and the alignment of the dies is exact, the carriage will rack to one side and jam ( or bend). Another problem is that you will be handling the work from a foot or more away from the dies, and this may make some tasks difficult ( the large table will extend out about a foot from the dies.
More concern comes from the rating label. "600 cycles per day". I'll round that to 60 cycles per hour, or one cycle a minute ( exactly 1.25cpm). You will need to get 10 or more cycles per minute to do much serious drawing.
The two-hand operation will have to be addressed and modified,too. You will have to come up with a foot operated control switch of some sort.
Consider getting some I-beams and welding up an H-frame to mount the cylinder on. Some creative scrounging may turn up what you need at a construction site or at a construction company lot. They may well give it to your school ( they may even cut it to size).
If it is free, or at a great price, this is a good press.....but it is not a plug and play bladesmithing unit.
Stacy
Like Ray said bigger pic and more of them. If you haven't got any dies done by the time you come for a visit, we can make them up here.:thumbup:
