Mechanical Presses are unique beast in many ways
When CharlesM is saying "may Grandfather in some safety", he is referring to the particular OHSA inspector that you are dealing with. By law mechanical presses are not grandfathered into any regulations. If they pass new regulations this year for mechanical presses and your have the latest safety controls from last year, your in violation
Operators of mechanical presses require special training. It's not like regular machines where an operator should know how to run the equipment and the saftey aspects of it, mechanical press operators must know how to block the press up during maintenance, whether it is a full or partial rev press, and the inner workings of the particular style press. Operators must also be periodically retrained. We got wrote up for this one at a company I worked for if you don't believe me.
While obviously you must keep these presses up to code, I would begin looking at replacing these presses with hydraulic versions in the long run. The plant I worked at used mechanical presses exclusively when I started working there. Aside from the cost of keeping then in compliance with OSHA, the cost of repairing these presses when they break is outrageous. Parts are getting harder to find and less people are willing to do any work on them because of the liability. We used this alone to justify the cost of there replacement. When I left the company there was only one of these presses left in operation and it was scheduled to be taken out of service within the year
