I sent my form rollers to be recovered and got them back without the MR-110 pin that goes into the end of the shaft, the one with the rounded head that connects to the gear clutch. The roller company says they never saw them. When I prepped the rollers for shipping, I stripped off the [...]

Hi, I recently obtained a vandercook that is in pretty rough shape and missing a lot of parts, although still great for what I need it to do. I have the two inking rollers that are supposed to be mounted together with the oscillating roller (excuse the made up terminology), but they aren’t usable anymore. [...]

Hi, I’m currently printing on a friend’s Vandercook Universal One press. However, when the temperature drops in the shop and I have a good amount of ink on the rollers, the back form roller gear appears to miss the teeth in the track and will ride atop of it creating a frightening grinding noise. Neither the gear nor [...]

_Comments are applicable to the No.4_ Need as much specific information on the Vandercook #215 form roller mechanism function. The one I’m trying to troubleshoot is at the Atlanta Printmakers Studio. The roller mechanism that propels the rollers as it traverses the press bed will not disengage when it returns to the feedboard, and as [...]

Details: Vandercook SP-15 Brand new inks from Graphic Chemical and Ink (their own block & letterpress ink) Photopolymer plates from Boxcar Press Impression is somewhat deep The issue is that if I put enough ink on the press to ink in one pass the type is ragged. What I’m having to do is shift to [...]

Dylan Fareed and I went out to visit John Barrett at Letterpress Things today and he asked me to drag some proof press roller assembly parts back to The Arm to attempt to identify them. I think the second one is a 219 rider roller assembly, but I have no clue on the rest. Anyone [...]

I picked up this Vandercook #3 (serial 13165) a few days ago and am interested in tracking down the parts it is missing. The press seems to have been partially disassembled to replace the rollers and the associated parts were lost before it was put back together. Here is a list of what I am [...]

The oscillating metal roller on my recently acquired #4 has been having a little bit of trouble making making its way back and forth when I ink up. It was sticking just as it reached it closest position to the operator, when the worm gear was no longer visible, I guess at the point where [...]

Hi, I am looking into possibly buying a 219 Old Style press from a man in Oklahoma. It looks like (from his pictures) that it is missing the rubber inking rollers and an oscillating inking roller (metal?). I knew about the rubber rollers, and the core bracket is there for those, so I imagine I can [...]

Daniel Morris asks if the No. 3 and No. 4 roller assemblies are interchangeable. I am answering in a new post so that I may add images –PM The top frame assembly (one large diameter steel oscillating roller and two small diameter steel riders) is identical (and removable). The difference is in the bottom frame [...]

Universal I’s [and other v-cooks?] have an optional dust cover which is, because of the design, often broken. They seem to break at the same point – the transition from dust cover to attachment tab. I believe that the dust cover should have been made without the cutout in the center, which would have prevented [...]

As the process of getting to know the press continues to unfold, I’ve been putting together some notes on various discoveries & lessons learned. This post is concerned with adjusting the height of ink rollers. While these notes may appear overkill for a relatively simple process, some may be as ignorant as I was about [...]