A couple of months back, I took off the gear racks, one side at a time and cleaned off 40 years of ink, grime and paper dust. All are back on in exactly the same position and tightened down with hex head screws. Nothing was dis-assembled from the roller carriage. Now, when the carriage in [...]

I’ve been working on and off for several months cleaning a Vandercook 4 that I purchased this summer. The press had been unused and in an Iowa garage for 5 years. My problem: the cylinder carriage moves easily down the track in trip mode, but gets very tight in print mode once the cylinder trip [...]

Dear Presspersons, I have done some printing of wood and lino cuts and set so much type as would be barely noticeable under your fingernail. But in spite of this relative inexperience I have purchased a #315, sn 5562 to replace/compliment my #0. I have disassembled every moving part, cleaned and lubricated, re-packed the bearings, [...]

The press? A Universal 1 manual. The problem? A severe case of an undercut cylinder. How sever you ask? Say your normal depth of cylinder on a Uni 1 is what? .040 inches? .070 inches? This Uni? .160 inches. What packing can fill it? What top sheet can hold it? What am I using for [...]

Has anyone had experience using a split roller that allows for two different inks to be used on a single print run?  Is it worth retrofitting a Uni to cut the printing time in half?  Thank you for your thoughts!

I am trying to figure out what press this tympan clamp bar comes from. It doesn’t fint my SP-15, the Uni I has a slotted bar, and it is too short for the Uni III. Any ideas? It is 14 inches long, the outer pins are 11 1/2 inches on center, and the innermost two [...]

 Hello. I am a newbie in the process of restoring a Vandercook No. 4, SN 18794. My husband, who was in aerospace mechanical engineering for many years, is providing advice and much moral support. He was surprised when I told him that the procedure for lubricating the impression cylinder gear teeth was to apply a [...]

Hello. I recently had my Vandercook No. 3 overhauled with a new paint job. While the press looks beautiful, the carriage with the cylinder no longer “locks” in place. I think something mechanical was painted over that should not have been, so if anyone has any suggestions about which part on my press is affected, [...]

I recently repaired an SP20 at the University of West Georgia on which the carriage had become stuck during the return travel. The photos above shows that top carriage bearings on the operator’s side had been removed during a previous repair attempt. Typically what happens on SP series presses is that the trip spring inside [...]

hi all I’m calling on the fount of collective knowledge here with a technical question. I’m refurbishing an sp-15, and as I was cleaning up the underside of the cylinder carriage I noticed that a rocking lever arm (what is I assume part of the trip mechanism) was sprung with a flat spring on one [...]

Can someone tell me about the characteristics and specs of a “tindeck blanket,” the original packing specified for the impression cylinder of my No.2 Proof Press, according to the model description on the vandy site. Just curious, never having come across one. Thanks, Duncan Dempster Honolulu, Hawaii

After reading the previous discussion about a misaligned cylinder causing the grippers to smash the form, I thought about the SP20 I’m currently going over (and on which we have not yet printed) and noted that when I received it, the gripper bar was not at 12 oclock when the cylinder was home at the [...]