Last week I was in New York to teach workshops at the Center for Book Arts, and also visited a couple of printshops including Daniel Morris’s The Arm Letterpress in Brooklyn. Some readers may know that has several Vandercooks including this rather unusual SP15 that has a hand lever mechanism to raise the paper grippers instead on a foot pedal.

ADR.1, N° 7927, built 1966.
The owner, artist Thomas H. Cremanns, Düsseldorf, Germany is moving his studio and wants to sell the press.

I was printing last night and was wondering what the largest run (number of sheets + number of colors) anyone had run on a Vandercook where you were either hand feeding the paper or hand cranking.

How about a few stories of your experiences? If you can please list the sheets / size / colors / press as you remember.

Could someone either take a nice close-up digital photo or carefully measure (wrap a piece of paper around it and measure) the circumference of both the form roller (the one that actually touches the type) and the gear that drives it as it moves across the press?

The outside diameter of my gear is noticeably larger than the roller itself (which I think is my problem) and it is creating problems with adjusting the roller height. I cannot get the roller low enough to be the correct inking height on the end toward the gear. The front roller (not sure if there is a specific name for it) seems OK.

Thanks for any help.

Thanks to Paul’s recent post regarding trip spring replacement, I was able to discern that my SP-15’s trip/print problem is that both springs are broken. I spoke with Fritz today for advice and ordered new ones. I know there was a photo recently posted by John Cristopher showing a carriage off the press with the trip spring in place. John, if you (or anyone else) has any other close up photos of the spring in place which I could use for additional reference, would you mind posting them or emailing them to me? I will be attempting to thread the springs in without removing the carriage or side plates, and it’s very difficult to see up inside. I don’t have a working press anywhere near for comparison, so any/all reference materials would be helpful. Thank you!

Just added a new page of Vandercook employee photos. Take a look at a few of the men who built your presses.

This plaque, on a 1919 model 20 (SN 1103, owned by John Horn), begs the question: when did Vandercook & Sons begin manufacturing—-or at least assembling—-presses in-house? Fritz says that he has not come across any documents in reference to outsourcing manufacturing for this period. However, he does have information on later subcontracted production. An undated sales brochure for Composing Room Cylinders announces that the presses were built by Vandercook & Sons on West Austin Ave in Chicago. In 1928 the company built new plant on North Kilpatrick Street.

Incidentally, Reichel & Drews is still in business as RDI Group providing machinery and engineering consulting for the asphalt & bitumen roofing industries. Unfortunately, RDI has no historical records of Reichel & Drews ever having manufactured equipment for R.O. Vandercook.

Dear All

I am considering selling my 2 Vandercooks to my employer. (Read: “I needs the cash!”) As I don’t keep up with recent Vandercook sales & prices anymore, I am curious what any of you might think they are worth.

The first is a Vandercook 4 that has been rebuilt, repainted, and has everything you’d expect to come with a standard issue 4. Delivery tray, brand new rollers . . . .

The second is a 325G that again has been rebuilt, repainted, and has everything you’d expect. New rollers, plenty of tympan paper.

Both are tight and print true. I’d appreciate input from any of you on or offline.

bestus,

Festus

I recently repaired an SP20 at the University of West Georgia on which the carriage had become stuck during the return travel. The photos above shows that top carriage bearings on the operator’s side had been removed during a previous repair attempt.


Typically what happens on SP series presses is that the trip spring inside the carriage side plate breaks causing the trip arm that shifts the carriage eccentric between print and trip to move freely.

Although it is difficult to access, Sheet 302 of the manual shows a diagram and outlines the procedure for replacing the spring.

A broken trip spring by itself doesn’t jam the carriage. In this case the retaining clip that hold the carriage eccentric arms linked to the trip arm stud had popped out. This caused the trip arm to flip over backward and hang down behind the print/trip pin that projects from the side of the bed. When this happens it impossible to repair the trip arm assembly without removing the side plate.

To remove the side plate, I had to also remove the tie rods, and the oscillating roller assembly. (The bottom carriage bearings were removed only for cleaning. Upon removing the side plate, I found that the brass Cylinder Eccentric (X-19423) remained attached to the crank shaft. A UGW Facilities worker assisting me, used a bearing extractor to remove it.

I then reassembled the mechanisms and new trip spring onto the side plate, I also reinstalled the carriage bearings, then remounted the side plate.

In consultation with Fritz beforehand, he suggested that the actual breaking of the trip spring was caused by another previous repair: the connecting bar between the trip/print operating handle and the trip/print pin that moves in and out of the side of the bed has a slot for a screw to hold it close against the bed press. The original low profile screw had been replaced with a hex head bolt, shown below, that having worked loose, made contact with the rear bottom carriage bearing. The operator forced the carriage past the bolt and this may have caused the trip spring to break.

After sharing my experience with Fritz, he sent me this Vandercook engineering change document for the SP series roller latch spring intended to eliminate disassembly of the carriage:

Fritz writes: “I interpret the change order as recognizing a design glitch where the loop of the end of the trip spring was almost a full circle and when the trip spring broke, they couldn’t get it off, thus a design change. We had new ones made for the -15 and -20 from the original blueprints and the spring company said “not a problem” though it sure looked like a problem to me.”

I need help identifying my Vandercook. There is no model number anywhere on the press (nor any serial number), the plate states only “Vandercook Roller Series Proof Press”. There are 4 patent dates, all in 1914. It looks like the 17 or a member of the 15 family as seen on the Vandercook website. The web site states the 15 family did not have a crank, which this one does. It has the serial number 5739.

Surely the collective wisdom of this group can add to the small start I have. Oh yes, I have to get rid of it so if anyone wants to make an offer, feel free. Otherwise it’s going on ebay, hopefully correctly described. It’s very heavy and a pickup only in Chicago. Health considerations limit my ability to move it.

Thank you,

Charles Kroon

Ginkgo Leaf Press
1759 Rosehill Drive
Chicago, IL 60660
773/989-2200
773/989-7599 fax
ginkgo@accumulata.com