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.