On my Vandercook Universal 1 the printing pressure at the bottom of the sheet releases (sometimes but not always) at 4 inches from the end of a 22 inch sheet causing the printing to be lighter. There seems to be no consistency in its happening. Sometimes the printing is fine and sometimes its light starting [...]

Hello, Has anyone replaced the wooden bearings on the inking drum of a Universal 1 press?, I noticed some side to side play in the inking drum awhile ago and ordered replacement wooden bearings from N.A. Graphics. But I was unclear on how to remove the inking drum and ended up leaving it as was [...]

Here is a shot of my Universal III. I am trying to accomplish 2 things. 1. rollers are maxed out at their lowest point to ink the form I want to be able to have adjustment height. 2. Cylinder picks up ink on the trip back to the feedboard. I want impression without picking up [...]

I’ve been having some inconsistencies with the braking and starting of my Universal I.  Dave Seat was here about a month and a half ago and made some adjustments to the microswitches to prevent the hard hitting at the feed board I was having (and more importantly showed me how to make proper adjustments).  Yesterday [...]

Recently the motor on my universal I has been reluctant to start. If I manually give the cylinder [drum] some torque, it will start. I replaced the capacitor mounted on the motor ($6.00), which seemed to help some. I can get a new motor from a local supply house for a reasonable cost (approx. $150) but [...]

What are these hinging parts at the end of the bed of the Universal I doing?

Hi all, Someone at Briar Press suggested that I post here since you are the Vandercook experts! As a new Vandercook Universal III owner, I’ve got a couple of issues going on that I’m hoping some of you can help me out with: 1. The power carriage seems to go out and back just fine [...]

Hello My name is Rob Wilson and I am a student printer at The University of Arizona. Last night durning class we had a few issues with one of our Universal I Vandercooks, First the rear inking roller locked up and would both not freely roll and was not allowing the rollers to be raised. What we did [...]

I’m getting the rollers for my Universal I recovered and noticed when I was making a case for them, that one roller has got straight edges, the other slightly tapered edges. Is there any particular reason?

I have been studying the directions in various posts and articles regarding adjusting the cylinder carriage bearings and was hoping for clarification on a couple points. First, on a Universal III, which bearing set are the impression bearings (x-12216) and which are the trip bearings (x-2688)? It seems that the lower set which ride on [...]

We have a Uni III and have recently noticed a few metal particles on the Kimwipe after wiping down the bearers. Not a a significant amount, but a few very small flakes. We print fairly regularly with the press, and do not seem to have any issues. How concerned should we be? Also, is there [...]