NA Graphics has added a new page on its website to list presses for sale. This is one more resource for acquiring your own press. See also the Links page on the present site for other companies and individuals selling equipment.

Terry Chouinard sent me this advertisement he saw in the BBS Specimen Book (No. 25) for a “Vandercook Gordon Press Vibrator.” He asked if Vandercook made any other equipment for production presses? Good question. After all, their presses were marketed as pre-press equipment. But nothing in the catalogs I’ve seen references anything like the Gordon Vibrator.

Some time ago Daniel Morris gave me a CD of pdfs of Vandercook patents he found on Google Patents. After reviewing these files it appears that the vibrator and R.O. Vandercook’s first patent “Means for Dissipating Static Electricity” (1902), plus three for offset presses, were the only ones issued to his company for inventions not part of a proof/test press or plate making equipment. Hacker Manufacturing Co., acquired by Vandercook in 1937, held 14 U.S. patents for equipment that later became part of the Vandercook product line, notably their well known plate gauge.

Rather than uploading Daniel’s files, I’ve created a page with tables listing the patents issued to Vandercook and separate pages for Hacker and Challenge. Each feature links to the drawings and descriptions on Google.

Goudy said: “The old fellows stole all our best ideas.” Proving it again is this No.4 with a custom-made hand activated gripper bar, similar to the idea for a No.3  discussed on this forum Summer ‘08 (archive links here and here). The pedal and chain linkage are still intact, but don’t work, I was curious to see it I could fix it, but this modification suits the new owner. Besides, I had more urgent issues to address: adjusting carriage bearings, installing new clutch pins, and freeing up the cylinder eccentric that shifted with difficulty at each each of the bed. My thought, confirmed by a call to Fritz, was that with lubrication it would work itself out after a couple hundred strokes. The owner reports today that it indeed shifting easier each time.

See also that the crank handle is at 10 o’clock instead of at 4 o’clock. It may have been installed this way because of a crude repair weld near the collar and the hole for the taper pin was drilled out off-center. When correcting the position I was not able to pass the bolt substituting for the taper pin all the way through.

Here are some photos from my December visit to the Museum of Printing History in Houston, where I spoke about the Vandercook centenary and consulted on their recently acquired circa 1909 Vandercook Trip Action Proof Press, commonly known as a “rocker.” It had belonged to a company in Cincinnati whose owner said that his grandfather purchased it new. Vandercook’s first model, the rocker was built in four sizes, this one with a 17 × 25½” bed was the second largest. (I’ve seen two others: one in private hands and one at the Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass.)

I had my first look at this press the day before my presentation. The heavy cylinder was stuck by an odd appliance wedged on the bed labeled “Miller Holdtite.” With some help I pushed the cylinder back to remove it. I didn’t know its purpose but was certain it’s unrelated. I posted a photo on Briar Press where David M. MacMillan says its a “Workholding Vise” and uploaded a pdf of a 1927 Miller catalog.

While there’s rust on the legs, this press is well preserved. I saw planing stripes on the bed telling me it has seen little use. After removing the old packing I found a pristine cylinder face free of rust, grime or any discoloration—astonishing given its age. With assistance from curator Amanda Stevenson and volunteers Gordon Rouze and Steve Sylvester, I cleaned and oiled the rails and bearings, and repacked with a Mylar drawsheet making it ready for a public demo the next day.

After my slide talk most of the audience joined me at the rocker, where I demonstrated its operation and invited them to pull a proof. Printing on a rocker is more akin to using a hand press than it is to cranking a later model Vandercook. The printing form must be inked by a brayer and the paper laid over. An operator needs to lean in over the cylinder, grasp the high side arm handle with the right hand and pull back. The cylinder—actually a curved segment—is heavy, and the operator feels the momentum as it tips forward, and so at the mid point over the form must be ready to grasp a shorter left side handle to help complete the cylinder’s travel until it reaches the end stop. The cylinder will then shift into trip and should be rolled back to the original position before removing the printed sheet. All in all, a vigorous workout. Practice is needed before a fluid motion is obtained

Touted in 1909 as a leap forward in proofing, the rocker is not suited for the kind of production work most Vandercook operators expect. But with its heavy and deep undercut cylinder, it makes an excellent press for hand printing or relief printmaking.

Photos by Amanda Stevenson and Linda Haynes.

This site is in redesign. The blog and the older static (html) pages have merged. This will make images and data tables load faster and give you the ability to search key words, categories, and meta tags on all pages. The page hierarchy has been reorganized, some have become sub pages while others are now more prominent.
Press images and PDFs have yet to be reloaded, please be patient.

On Saturday, December 12, I will give my Vandercook history talk at the Museum of Printing History in Houston, Texas. I’ve heard great things about this place and am looking forward to setting up their recently acquired Rocker Series press. Let me know if you will attend.

It’s now easier to add images to your comments to blog posts:

1) Write your comment.
2) Select “Browse” and navigate to the file on your computer.
3) Select “Submit Comment.”

The Fall issue (mid November) of Ampersand, the quarterly journal of the Pacific Center for Book Arts, will feature a papercraft Universal I to celebrate the Vandercook Centenary. Designed by Shirley Edwards and printed at Logos Graphics in San Francisco. More photos at Lars K. Flickr site. This nicely complements Kyle Van Horn’s papercraft SP20.

REVISED. The question keeps coming up: when was the first Vandercook sold? A 1909 sales brochure says the first press was sold in May of 1909. The story of that sale was recounted in a 1940 Editor & Publisher profile of R.O. Vandercook: “Vandercook had not intended to stop at proof presses, but planned to go on to the building of regular production presses, and so built a model machine showing only the parts that had to do with impression, which became the Rocker Series Press.” Vandercook showed this prototype to Chicago printer Fred Cozzens, who asked how much would it cost to build a proof press. In reply Vandercook asked if he would pay $100. Mr. Cozzens said he would.

The first entry on page 1 of the ledger “Serial 1000-1129 | Book A” shows a date stamp of Sept 30, 1909 next to the handwritten entry “A.F. Wanner & Co. for Kenfield-Leach, Chicago.” Beneath the last column headed “Our Order No.” is the number 150. The ledger also shows that Wanner, the original manufacturer of the Potter proof press, alongside American Type Founders, and Typothetae of New York were Vandercook’s first sales agents.

The brochure and the ledger proves that Vandercook’s press was a commercial success from the beginning. Cozzens & Beaton and Kenfield-Leach are among 126 firms listed in the brochure, as are several prominent printing concerns of the day: Curtis Publishing, University of Chicago Press, The Inland Printer and T.A. Munder.

All images courtesy of Fritz Klinke/NA Graphics.

Today is the official deadline to have received participants prints for the centenary bundle. So far I’ve received 61 out of a projected 100. While it fell on a Sunday this year, August 16 was chosen because it is (was) the birthday of R.O. Vandercook.

Several participants have told me their prints are in the mail and will arrive in the coming week, a few have asked for more time to complete the task, and others have not communicated their intent. I will continue to post images of prints on the gallery page as they roll in and privately prod the procrastinators.

I just posted a new census of Potters presses. I’m hoping to figure out the manufacturing history of these machines. Originally Manufactured by A.F. Wanner Co. Chicago, IL., later Potter presses have name plates that say made by Hacker Manufacturing. The 1935 ATF Catalog shows Challenge-Potter and Challenge-Poco presses (pages F-11, F-13).