Shop safety question

[wilsonmw04]

Greetings,

Background:
Over the summer, my team acquired a manual shear press (link to model).
It has sat in the shipping crate due to a lack of an appropriate stand. One of our sponsors heard of this and created a 33" tall cast iron stand for the press. My administration is balking at the idea of bolting it to the floor. They suggested mounting the stand to a plate instead. They have requested that I do some calculations to determine the tipping risk of the press on a plate of undetermined area.

Questions:
1. How do I go about determining the torque required to shear a 1/8" piece of aluminum 4 ft wide? I am a Physics teacher, so i'm familiar with shear stress and the like, but there seems to be so many variables to this (mechanical advantage, area of the cutting surface, ETC.)

2. Is a plate mounting feasible for this application? (I have never heard of this before)