Its a new subject to me entirely.  I have the concept understood, but equipment selection I am having a quandary.
 
Do I want to buy an expensive all in one ($1100) which I just connect to a cylinder (literally its plug and play) but slow movement of the cylinder (think log splitter)
 
OR...
 
Spend half the money and get a dual stage pump which allows for rapid motion until a load is felt and then it kicks into low?  I would have to price out each individual component, buy lines, hook it up correctly etc. 

I am also not 100% sure all the components I have chosen will work well with the cylinder.  I know the all in 1 works with the cylinder since they mated it at the store and showed me it worked together.  The all in one runs on 120 with a 0.75KV motor. 
 
The custom operation I chose a 6HP motor which I have to run a 220V line.  Thats not a problem at all as I have done that a few times before. 
 
I have priced out a 1HP motor from Tractor Supply @ 300
16GPM Pump from ebay @ 117
hand valve from Mcmaster @ 134 (not sure how to rig up all the hoses)
2 gallon tank @ 79
A 3000 psi relief valve @ 37
 
That puts the project @ 668 (rounding here and there).  Still not in the cost is lines and adapters to have everything, but I dont see that being too much.
 
I would obviously have more work to do with the piecemeal solution, but I would get exactly what i want (I think). 

My son made a log splitter from an old chevy power steering pump and a cheap cylinder from amazon, powered by a 1 horse electric motor. I will be seeing him next weekend. I will try to snap a few pics

Shockjockey
My son made a log splitter from an old chevy power steering pump and a cheap cylinder from amazon, powered by a 1 horse electric motor. I will be seeing him next weekend. I will try to snap a few pics

YES PLEASE.  That would be awesome just based on sheer ingenuity. 
 
As for my predicament, I decided to just spend the money.  I went to the place and watched the cylinder in action and its really not as slow as I thought.  Also the cylinder is designed to deliver the 50 tons @ 10,000 psi.  that throws everything off as everything I looked at did 3,000 PSI.  It makes my life easier work wise (just buy and connect), but makes it harder financially since the pump combo is 1100.  Although I have looked around and that isnt a bad price considering whats out on grainger and the likes for hydraulic pump/motor combo's.

I am glad you brought this back from the dead.  My hydraulic forge press requires 10,000 PSI to operate at 50 tons, but its not as fast as I would like to be.  I haven't found any really fast 10K psi pumps with high flow.

That is a product design.  There is a detent in the spool valve end-cap which is holding the valve in one direction.  When the cylinder which that valve is controlling reaches the end of its stroke, the hydraulic pressure spike should cause that detent to release and cause the valve to pop back to center on its own.  Or, as you can see, you can manually pop it back to center whenever you want.  It is a feature which allows you to not be required to be exhausted by having to manually hold that handle all day.  LOL!  It allows you to set the handle to fully extend or fully retract the cylinder (whichever direction you plumb it) while you step away to do something else.
 
Sometimes that detent position is an open-center floating position to allow the hydraulic cylinder to manually be extended or retracted by external forces as if there is no hydraulic pressure in the system.  But that is quite unlikely for your application.  Almost certainly, for your application, that detent is designed to hold the valve in one direction until the cylinder reaches the end of its travel and then the pressure spike pops the valve back to center.
 
You can remove the detent if you want.  There should be ball bearing and a spring which you can remove from inside the end-cap at the end opposite of the handle.
 
It should look something similar to this:

 
The detent can usually be removed without removing the end-cap by removing the screw(s)/plug(s) on the side of the end-cap and then pulling the spring(s) and ball(s) out and then reinstalling the screw(s)/plug(s) to keep dirt out.  Otherwise, you may have to remove the end-cap to remove the detent from inside it.
 
Don't take the spool shaft out like in the picture (unless you want to for some other reason).  Removing the detent doesn't cause you to have to take anything else apart and won't release hydraulic fluid.