All ready to come home

We took a trip to the local home improvement mega store today to pick up a wonderful piece of lumber. We were lucky enough to find a board that is 4" x 6" which I feel will help keep the press much more stable and upright when moving. The downside is the only length they had was 12' long. Little more than the two 36" pieces we really need. It's OK though, we'll use the left over 6' of 4" x 6" as one of the uprights when it goes into the basement. Another good note, I took another measurement of the press all stripped down. Turns out from the end of the flywheel shaft to the boss on the main gear is about 30". This mean it WILL fit through the basement doorway front to back. That means the uprights that will support the press as it descends the stairs can be placed on the back, out of harms way from the gears or the edge of the platen. It will also be much easier and safer to brace them against the motor bosses and the large casting at the top where the harp axle goes.

The press as it sat after dismanteling. From here we need to tip is over ever so carefully and insert the sleds or skids under the feet and run lag bolts through the feet.

Not being to brave we lifted the press only enough to get a 2x4
under one set of feet. We were afraid of it then slipping off the
board so we lag bolted it to this board temporarily.

















The first skid is in place.


















Both skids are now in place and bolted through the feet. The ends of the skids were cut to allow the whole deal to get up onto steel bars to roll it across the floor easily. Now all there is to do is call a truck to haul it to the studio.

Our first Letterpress video

Since the work refurbishing the studio is done and the cabinets are all in, there's not much more to do until the press gets moved home. Well aside from organizing and proofing fonts, tossing lino slugs into the hell box, Distributing unopened packages of type. Setting the computer desks back up. Reformatting and setting up workstations and servers. Moving network hardware and adding some more runs to upstairs. Building work tables, shelves and cabinets for cuts and miscellaneous items. Rearranging and adding lights. Fixing the stove pipes and laying new stone in the corner. Ok, ok, there's a ton more we could be doing. But instead I took the time to shoot some video of the auto ejector option on the hohner B with my camera phone. I'm hoping that showing it around the letterpress lists will maybe find someone that's used it before and can let me know if it's set up right or just how well it's supposed to work. So after a few hours of palying around in iMovie we've got a nifty little film of our youngest, Samual, operating the press while I take jerky poor quality video all set to a really cool tune by Jethro Tull. so without further addo. . .

Video of a Hohner Model B Auto Eject option in Action.

After a few back and forth emails from Mike Anton we're back at it. I used what I had at hand, which is actually a bearing puller. I inverted the "jaws" that are meant to wedge between the case of a machine and the bearing so I had a good flat surface the width of each jaw to pull against the spokes. My fear here is that it's going to put to much strain on the spokes and cause them to snap. It's not like we can run down to the local letterpress store and pick up a new one if that happens so we'll go real slow and careful. In the event that to much pressure has to be applied to the main bolt on the puller we'll take this apart and get some square tube stock and threaded rod and make up our own puller so that we can pull against the beefy inside portion of the hub.

After a couple of turns things were proceeding well. Better than I expected really. There wasn't a lot of resistance at all. No over due stress. Everything was good and straight. It does seem the flywheel is pulling past the key.

Success!! After another couple of turns from the above photo everything loosened up considerably and there was little effort needed to turn the main bolt until it could be taken off by hand. As we progressed we could see the back side of the key firmly affixed in the keyway on the shaft. It is indeed a square key and not a wedge key as I had feared. Once the wheel was fully free of it's bonds our oldest son Kriztaffer held the flywheel steady, which we supported with some 2x4s and a pallet jack from below the entire time by the way. Last thing I wanted was this 108 pound flywheel to come flying off the saft and smashing into the floor or a foot. Once the puller apperatus was removed we took off the 2x4s and placed a skid on the pallet jack. Then I lifted the flywheel from the shaft to the end of the pallet jack, and then lowered it carefully onto the skid. Safe and sound now we turned to the key. A few taps of a punch and hammer and it came loose. Underneath was a lot of penetrating oil and, what I figure, some dried ink. The ink, or whatever it was, may have held the key in place, but it also fits very tightly into the key way on the shaft. Tight enough that I couldn't put it back into the keyway by hand. It does however, after careful inspection, fit rather loose into the keyway on the flywheel.

So with the added exhilaration of getting the flywheel off, with the key and spokes intact, we moved on to the remaining parts that we can remove. The dog bones, or links from the platen to the axle of the roller keepers are very supseptable to being broken when these presses are moved. Also the harps, or roller keepers, are a common item that get broken. Since the dog bones are mounted on shafts at each end it's very important to go slow and keep them as straight as possible. The one on the flywheel side came off with little prying. The one on the right, or gear side of the press however was a bit more of a hassle. Once the first dogbone was off there was nothing holding the harp shaft in place, so we had to use a gear puller. First a little on one end, then a little on the other all the time being sure not to put a lot of "bend'" on the dogbone. With those and the harps off we realized the axle just slides out of the casting. So that came out too. Then turning to the front of the press I figured it wasn't much more to take off the the two axles on the platen and in front of it. Actually the one in front is only connected to the dogbones, to another set of links that go to the axle in the platen and to a send of rods that connect underneath and are driven by one of the large springs. Everything came right off with only a little fighting with the throw off mechanism.

What a difference between where we started and were it is ready to move. Having it so disassembled makes me feel more comfortable that little will get broken when the press is moved onto and off of the truck or trailer. It also allows us better access to more areas of the press for cleaning. The one thing I am really amazed at is just how much gunk this machine is covered in. The only good side to that is it seems to have helped somewhat preserve some of the detailing that these old machines used to get. The pinstriping and emblems, some of which we discovered when cleaning the feet in preparation for bolting it to skids. Nope, they just don't seem to take that sort of pride in making machines any more.These things bordered on show pieces when new much more than just some utilitarian device. The guys making these back in the 18 and 1900's knew how to pay attention to details.

Dismanteling our new letterpress

Now that all the cabinets are in place, and all the job case full of type are moved, all there is to do now is take apart all the fragile parts of the press so it can be crated and moved. We had high hopes for the day. We knew the key for the flywheel would be the most trouble so we planned on removing that first. Having checked it out previously we knew there was a lip for a puller to grab onto, though it seemed small and rounded. To help with this I figured using a cold chisel to cut a groove behind the lip would give a gear puller something more to grab onto, as well as the vibration should knock it loose from anything sticking it firm. As it turned out, no amount of groove, edge, lip or recess was going to help because the standard gear puller we had was not the right type for removing a key. Not to fear. Lots of penetrating fluid, tapping, prying and pulling and it should come loose. Can you tell we've never really done this before. If not, then I'll tell you no less then four hours later the best plan we had was to give up and ask for advice. I called my friend John Barrett from Letterpress things. He suggested we contact Mike Anton, the Golding Guru, from St. Louis about it. He was easy enough to find with a listing on brairpress.org and other sites. We shot him off an email and figuring it could be at least a day before we heard from him we moved onto other parts. We went to work on removing the next most difficult, or at least heavist part. The motor. I was astounded at how loose all the bolts were and surprised tha the motor hadn't come flying off the press already. I was also happy to find out the motor mounts were wood, although heavily encased in grease, oil and grime. The downside is the box that makes up the motor mount is a rather convoluted thing. Something we're going to have to rethink once it's cleaned up and in the studio. Once that mess was off, including the metal tube wrapped around the press going to the front with the on/off switch, I moved to the Ink disk and ink fountain holder at the top. That came right off with no problem. We then took off the arms that the feed and delivery tables mount to. Then being a bit adventurous and hoping to gain some extra room since when I measured the press has to go through the studio doorway sideways, we removed the bar that connects the harps, or roller keepers, to each other. These came off as easily as everything else. Seems all the oil coating this press is at least making that easy. There was one unexpected event. Once unbolted the harp on the flywheel side dropped suddenly. It only spun around on it's axle, but it was surprising enough that I got my hand in the way and squished my finger some. The harp on the gear side of the press remained in place though, a result of the link from the harp to the gear which is what actually supplies the up and down motion to the ink rollers as they pass over the ink disk and chase. Unfortunatly here we got another not so nice surprise. When the bolt finally cam out of the harp, the link dropped to the concrete floor with a heart stopping clang. Fortunately no toes were in the way and the link survied with no cracks or breaks. We took this as an omen though and once the bottom bolt was out of the link we packed up the truck and headed for home.

Our press gets some friends

One of the great things about the print shop I work for is they've been around since 1916. Back then all printing was done with letterpress. The second greatest thing about the shop is they still have quite a bit of letterpress items and still to this day print with them. Though mostly it's scoring, numbering and some die cutting. So I spent most of the week talking with the owners, well more like begging, pleading and exalting the benefits of freeing up space. (I'm seeing a pattern starting here. . . ) in an attempt to get a small cabinet of type cases and some other goodies I could really use to get our printing adventures under way. What they generously decided was anything they weren't currently using to do their own letterpress work was mine for the taking as well as the cabinet provided if they needed anything from it I'd promptly bring it in. This is awesome! Not only do a get a whole bunch of type faces, but composing sticks, solvent cans, ink, knives, furniture, pretty much everything someone would need to start a studio. I was good. I didn't go off the deep end and take just anything not nailed down. I only took what my little one press shop would need to get going. I rummaged around and managed to gather up about a box full of supplies. Rags, cord, planer, composing sticks, type brush, typhan, ink. The usual stuff.


I was fortunate to find buried behind a large cabinet of type a fairly full case of furniture. No one even knew it was back there and they certainly didn't need it as they have huge imposing stone full of furniture.


This is the cabinet they agreed to let me have. It was in the pressman's way after all. It's just the right height and size to put the press onto and at least a little more solid than the home made table. Plus it's full of type, mostly fancy wedding fonts, and some numbering machines and tools.


See those cut out on the edges of the cases. Those are there so you can easily pull out each case as needed. The down side is it lets tons of dust and offset powder into the cases. These will certainly need to be cleaned out. Some are so bad you can't even see that there's type in the compartments.

Homeward bound

We set out with our old worn out minivan to pick up the letterpress. It was found buried under a bag of styrofoam peanuts and card board boxes. Sitting on a rickety little home made table, brilliant hammered metal green and more then a bit dusty. We blew it off, choked and sneezed on the resulting dust storm. Contemplated it's appearance and construction. Poked at the rollers to see how hard or soft they'd become over the years. We were very surprised when they were actually soft and springy and not hard as solid stone like we'd expected. We pulled the lever slowly watching carefully that our action wasn't about to rent some old piece of cast iron from it's proper place. Everything worked as one would expect, even the the singing little clang of the ink disk pawl ratcheting on the mechanism to forward the disk for new ink. A sound most likely not made from this beast for a few decades at least. My friend from work told me what they used to use it for. Showed me some of the plates they would use to make the molds, and even a few old molds made on the press that were laying around it. He said he remembers something being broken, but couldn't remember what it was and since it seemed to operate properly we agreed he was more than generous to let us take the press. This press really is a beast for being a small table top press. While I can mange to carry it on my own, though being very awkward to hold onto. It's is a task that is certainly better left to two, or even three fairly strong people. Something we found out after the wife and myself muscled it out of the stamp shop to the van. We took the little homemade table as well and some boxes of this and that, that my friend was sure belonged with the press. As a gesture of thanks we cleaned up tidied up the void left by the press. Upon rearranging the boxes and bags of peanuts we discovered there were two Hamilton type cabinets also buried in the shop. I proceeded to beg, plead and offer favored never possibly redeemable for the cabinets. Since my friends brother was not there at the time he would have to ask him and get back to us. With high hopes and convinced our arguments of feeing up space in the stamp shop we happily trucked our new green treasure back home where we did a repeat of the press carrying dance to get it into out basement family room soon to turn print shop.

Once is was home and well dusted, boxes sorted through and thoroughly "scoped" out it was discovered what the broken part was. Honer had an option called an "auto eject" which is supposed to facilitate with removing the printed sheet from the platen. It does this through the use of a pivoting rocker arm with a bearing that rides on a cam of sorts when the lever is pulled. That rocker arm is broken in two. For now that's not a big deal. It'll be a neat thing to play with in the future but it doesn't impede our ability to print currently so we'll set it aside and look into ways of fixing it in the future. Our bigger task at the moment is getting all the little things we'll need to go with it to actually put ink on paper. . . like ink!! We'll need type and a composing stick and some other things too so the search begins. . . . .

The Beginning...

Well not really THE beginning. That started earlier in November when a coworker heard me talking about wanting an old hand operated lever platen press to fool around with. I wanted to connect and keep a reminder of where the art of printing had started. Especially since printing is no longer so much an art anymore with all the automation and digitalization. It turned out that this generous coworker had a circa 1970s Honer B collecting dust in his families rubber stamp business. Many decades ago letterpresses were used not only for printing ink on paper, but also for making molds to pour hot rubber into for stamps. Like printing however the trade has evolved and the press and type was no longer needed or used. The press, type and a few other items they had were mine for the taking. A very very generous offer and gift that will never be forgotten. We transported it all to our home, set it up, cleaned it off and so that was the real beginning.

This beginning, though a little late, is the start of the blog for the private press we are now operating. Full Metal Press as we have deemed it through a family vote. Blogs seem very popular among the letterpress community around the Internet, so it seemed the most appropriate and simplest way to create a website to go with our little private press. Like many others operating letterpresses for fun and profit, this is a great way to easily share that which we learn, create, discovery, acquire and even sometimes print. Being this beginning is later than the actual beginning of things though, your going to see a whole lot of posts made to try and catch up on all that's happened to our little print shop the past year and half. None of it was recorded as it happened, so we're left to speculating about the actual dates when things took place. I don't imagine there will really be a whole lot, though we all know how story telling can go once one gets started. . . .