Tortilla press geometry problems I have a fairly typical Mexican-made tortilla press, and I've had it for a while. It works of course, but there's a persistent problem of the part of the tortilla at the hinge end of the press ending up much thinner than the part where the lever is.

That makes sense of course; this particular press has almost no "play" at all at the hinge, and when the plates are fully closed they're touching with basically no wiggle.

I'm not asking for a recommendation for another brand so much as asking whether there may be certain patterns of hinge design that allow for a little bit of play in the hinge so that that end of the tortilla doesn't get pinched down to nothing.

I also wonder if the real problem may be that mine is a little 6" or so press instead of a larger 8" press.

I probably should just go fool around with presses at a local market and check to see; I hadn't used mine in a while but I did over the weekend and I got somewhat frustrated.

edit — for those not familiar with what a "tortilla press" looks like, it's a simple pair of flat round iron plates connected by a hinge.  Opposite the hinge is a lever that allows the plates to be forced together.

If you hold your hands in front of you with the heels of your hands together and your fingers out in a big "V" shape, that's basically what the press looks like when open.  As the press closes, the distance between the plates gets smaller, but it gets smaller more quickly at the hinge side than the other side. That issue is my problem.

The tl;dr of my question is whether there exist some presses that have enough looseness in the hinge mechanism to keep that part of the press from squeezing the tortilla dough too thin.
With no pictures of your press it is hard to make suggestions.
But assuming your press has metal plates with loops and a pin for the hinge, and if you can take it apart, you might be able to lengthen the hole of the plates (by lengthen I mean to wollar out but only to an oval instead of a circle in the correct direction, so there is play up and down between the plates but not forward and backward between the plates).
What you are needing is a small (about 1/8 inch) gap between the plates when pressed.

Remove the hinge pin
Take apart the plates
Lengthen the hinge holes on one plate (top plate) - you should be able to do that with a drill and the proper sized bit, or with a metal file
Place plates back together
Insert the pin

Now there will be more space and the plates should be able to close with a small gap for the tortilla.