Archive for the Cylinder Eccentric Category

Vandercook 4 Cylinder Problem - Posted February 25, 2010

Hello, I recently bought a Vandercook 4 from the Hick’s Bros.

Everything seems like it’s in working order except the cylinder needs to be adjusted – the rail on the operating side is bearing down hard and there’s a gap on the non-operator side where you can see daylight between the rails. I think as a by-product of this issue the press is printing heavier on the operator side and lighter on the non-operator side. Also, the teeth are starting to have tiny specks of metal get shaved away. I’ve stopped printing as soon as I noticed this, but am in a deadline to finish my first job with this press and feeling the crunch…

Can anyone give me a lead-through on how to fix this? I know that it’s something to do with the ball bearings in the printing/impression cylinder, but I haven’t got a clue where to start.

Help? Friedrich Kerksieck

Hand gripper redux - Posted February 6, 2010

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.

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