Chris Manson, proprietor of Crooked Crow Press, in Rockville, Maryland has converted his Universal III Power Vandercook to a hand-cranked press. He had a retired machinist make a collar extension to fit onto the bearing stub on the impression cylinder (photo 3). Onto this new bearing stub Chris attached a crank from a large Poco press. Note the notch that had to be cut out of the handle arm (photo 5). Currently, a set screw is the only means of holding the position of the crank collar on the new bearing stub. Chris still needs to have a hole drilled through the assembly to fit a taper pin.

Chris kept the circuitry intact but removed the carriage motor, which was attached on the carriage. He also removed the form rollers, preferring to ink his forms manually with a roller as is done on an iron handpress.

With this project, and the 232 at Wesleyan, hand-cranked conversion seems to be an idea whose time has come. Fritz Klinke has asked me to assist him in developing a conversion kit to that could be used on most power carriage models including the 219. Together we will study the original Vandercook engineering drawings during my visit to NA Graphics in February.

Chris was fortunate to have found a crank long enough for his press. Additionally to matching length to cylinder and bed size a new handle arm would need to have an outward bend like those on standard equipped hand-cranked Vandercooks.

i’m in northern new mexico and looking for a table top cylinder press, any simple vandercook or challenge, would work for me, preferably in terrible shape as i assume i can afford it then and pay to fix over the long run in keeping with my income flow, looking for something relatively nearby that i can drive to or won’t break the bank on shipping.

i welcome any advice, tips or suggestions.

thanks

Wesleyan University Art Professor David Schorr and Studio Tech Kate Ten Eyck have acquired a Vandercook 232P for the Printmaking studio. Kate sent me this photo of the press as it looked in November. Their objective is to convert this power carriage press into a hand-cranked one. The 232 is a big press: maximum form: 31½” x 28” , floor space: 3’9” x 10’6” and weighing 5000 lbs with the power carriage motor and frisket tower installed.

Last week I was in New Haven CT to tune up Vandercooks in three of the college printshops at Yale, and as Wesleyan is only 50 miles away in Middletown, I called Kate who drove down to pick me up. We went directly to the campus machine shop to see a newly cleaned and painted press. The Machinists intend to mount a new gear with a crank handle on the carriage that will mesh with the cylinder gear. This configuration will require two revolutions of the crank handle for the carriage to travel the length of the bed.

Here’s a pic of Kate with machinists Dave Boule and Bruce Strickland. More as the story unfolds.

While traveling in Japan I ran across two of these little vander-like presses. This one was at one of Tokyo’s 6 still-functioning typefoundries, the other was at the Toppan Museum [I can’t post pictures of it because they said so]. Anyways, here’s some pictures for your amusement & edification. Let me know if you have any questions

-Alex

press817

I am pleased to announce a letterpress intensive to be held over President’s Day weekend in February in Denver, Colorado for instruction in either the Heidelberg Platen or Vandercook presses.

The Vandercook portion on Saturday and Sunday, February 16 and 17, will be conducted by Paul Moxon. Paul teaches both maintenance and printing classes throughout the US and has developed an excellent reputation for his knowledge and expertise. We will have 3 Vandercooks available, including a Universal I, and a full letterpress shop as backup for support. We will have available hand set type, bases for photopolymer, and patent bases for magnesium and copper plate systems. Depending on individual needs, areas to be covered include maintenance, form preparation, makeready, and printing techniques as related to the Vandercook. Paul has a tremendous enthusiasm and practical working knowledge of Vandercooks, and while not teaching classes, runs his own design and printing business that uses a Vandercook #4.

The Heidelberg portion on the same days will have 5 Heidelberg platens available for the exclusive use of the students. All the presses are meticulously maintained in perfect working order and several have additional foil units.

Heidelberg instructors are Rob Barnes of Foils and Dies of Denver and Elias Roustom of Em Press, New Bedford, Mass. Both are accomplished printers and have an excellent reputation, and also have an extensive list of nationally known clients. Elias specializes in deep relief printing using photopolymer, but has also done 4-color process work and traditional non-deep impression letterpress. Elias was the plant superintendent for the Merrimade company that does volume mail order business in stationery items
and napkins, all letterpress on C&P platens and Heidelberg platens. During their rush season prior to Christmas, his 5 presses would turn out several thousand orders per month so he had to perfect techniques that produced excellent high volume work. Now that he has his own business, he produces work for professional and commercial clients and a growing number of graphic designers from the Boston and New York City area.

Rob Barnes maintains one of the more remarkable pressrooms I have ever seen—it is spotless though geared to highly professional work from runs of 50 to his biggest of around 700,000 impressions. He has also developed techniques that work consistently in producing high quality precision work for letterpress, foil stamping, embossing and die cutting. His clients run from Crane’s Paper to the Coors Brewing Company, with a sprinkling of people like Robert Redford, and numerous graphic designers and both trade and commercial clients. He hosted two sold out sessions on letterpress at the recent national meeting in Denver of the AIGA. Rob insists that his equipment runs flawlessly, so is an expert on how to operate and tweak Heidelberg platens. Rob works primarily from magnesium and copper plates using a patent base system. Between Rob and Elias, all the currently used methods of achieving commendable letterpress work on the Heidelberg will be covered, and again, suited to the individual needs of the participants.

Rob also maintains an antique pressroom that includes a beautifully restored Columbian, a wood common press, and several other hand presses along with wood and metal type, miterers, a fine reference library, and lots of other stuff to drool over.

Who should attend? We encourage anyone from rank beginner to the advanced press person to consider this session. Instruction will be to the individual needs. We do require that you be serious, have some idea what letterpress is all about and have some experience, even if limited, and be willing to put in two long and intensive days in the pressroom. We already have several people who have indicated they wish to attend, and thus there are a limited number of openings, a few more for the Vandercook sessions.

We have planned these sessions for the person who wants to learn from the top people in the field, and I have every confidence in these three fellows. These guys are professionals, know their equipment, use their knowledge and equipment to make for themselves and employees a comfortable living all while practicing the honorable craft of letterpress.

NA Graphics is also a sponsor of this session and I will be there in charge of refreshments. While I have over 50 years of letterpress experience, what these three guys bring to the table far out shines my own abilities. Our goal is to teach consistency, precision, machine proficiency, and both traditional and new
techniques in the art of letterpress.

We have a course outline for both the Vandercook sessions and one for the Heidelberg sessions, along with lodging information, and cost of the courses. Please email me if you are interested. We will arrange for those flying into Denver on Friday, Feb. 15, for transportation to the shop and hotels, and if you’re like me, I’d need a ride from Amtrak at Union Station. Lunch will be brought into the shop each day and we’ll visit good Denver restaurants as a group for dinner. There will be snacks and beverages during
the day.

Fritz Klinke, NA Graphics
P.O. Box 467, 1314 Greene Street
Silverton, Colorado 81433
970-387-0212, fax 970-387-0127
nagraph@ekiva.net, www.nagraph.com

A prelude leading up to a repair question-
I am restoring a Vandercook 4, serial # 10877, that I’ve had for a few years now. I’ve been mostly removing accumulated layers of ink, grease/dust and mild rust, and lubricating moving parts. With a couple of exceptions nearly everything appears in order.

One of the first problems I noticed is insufficient clearance between the form roller gear and clutch block that I think is due to wear on the clutch lever, more so towards the feederboard, as shown in the first photo (the set screw is removed in this picture). I read the suggestions for shimming the trip lever but there appears to be almost no additional play to be gained there.

I also have 2 sets of rollers. Set “A” has what appears ( to me) to be a good set of clutch pins but the gear on the rear roller clacks slightly when the clutch is disengaged. The pins in set “B” are much shorter and don’t engage with the clutch at all. I’m pretty certain I need to replace the pins on set “B”. They don’t appear to be so much worn as to be perhaps the incorrect pins(?) The tips are concave. I think the pins in set “A ” will engage if I repair the clutch.

I have someone who’s a whiz a metalsmithing that I’d like to have braze some more material into the depressions in the clutch plate while I have the chance. However I’m not sure of the best way to remove it for this repair. I’m comfortable with disassembling things when necessary but I’ve tried to limit it to those parts that could not be sufficiently cleaned otherwise, such as the gripper and roller assemblies, and leave others areas alone in order to avoid decalibrating or mucking up anything that didn’t need fixing in the first place. It appears that quite a bit of the trip rack assembly has to be taken apart to get to the clutch plate, including knocking out a couple of pins. I started the process but as I got deeper and deeper in it occurred to me I might be missing something very simple and be smacking myself on the forehead in short order.

So that’s my question- is there a simple way to remove the clutch plate or am I in for a long sequence of disassembly? Any advice or commentary on this process would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Yvonne

I’m planning to move during the next year and I’m concerned about getting the right people to move my Vandercook 3 (serial no. 99-10800). I want to be well prepared in advance. The press is in the basement of my home and was moved there in parts (cabinet, bed, and cylinder carriage). I assembled it myself. It then needed fine adjustments to the roller bearings, so I had someone do that. That was fourteen years ago. I’m especially concerned about whether or not it would need to be disassembled before the move. Any advice would be appreciated. I live in Oak Park, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago.