So, as some of you may remember, I’m restoring an SP20 currently (yeah, I know, I should be done by now… but I’m not.)
Well, I’m finally having the rollers recast, and I noticed something yesterday I thought I’d pass along.
I was cleaning the gunk off of the ends of my cores to send out, and found that they not only had original grey Vandercook paint on the ends, but one end had been stamped I-I-74. (It could also be 1-1-74, but they sure look like capital I-s to me.)
(under the gunk...)
Some quick research tells me that they aren’t the parts numbers – but then what are they? Were the rollers cast on New Years Day of 74?
The press itself dates from 1962, an early SP model before the leaf springs in the trip.
Forgive me if this is actually uninteresting – every core I’ve ever seen has been ground within an inch of its life or scrubbed, dropped, and nicked beyond recognition. It’s nice to see something that’s been all-but-untouched for 30,+, +, + years.
I’m hoping they survive recasting in good shape still… I want to show them off!
kyle.
The prints for these cores indicate that the vendor’s name and date were to be stamped on each core, and that would be date of core manufacture. The vendor’s name could be as simple as one letter, and it wasn’t always done. Vandercook sometimes shopped out core making as we still do.