Anyone got an idea of the sequence (or at least a place to start loosening bolts) to move the sprockets to tighten the chain on an automatic Universal III? The chain is hanging enough that it is dragging just after (or before?) it passes the sprocket nearest the ink drum roller. I’m not sure it […]
MoreMore TagAuthor: Ray Nichols
SP15 form roller slipping
I have a friend who has an SP15. She was having trouble getting the inking smooth and I stopped over to see if I could figure it out. Turned out that the roller and the drive gear were acting independently of each other. Once it was printing the gear that should drive the form roller […]
MoreMore TagUniversal III relay contacts…
We have a Vandercook Universal III. I had a few spare relay contacts, but have just burned out a couple. Anyone have an idea if there is a way to get these or does anyone know if you could adhere the actual contact? I was thinking that maybe there was a way to get the […]
MoreMore TagUniversal III / misregistration
I have a friend with a Universal III. It had the power drive, but he had a handcrank put on instead.He is a knowledgeable printer with solid skills. He was printing something this past week (two colums of text) and every other one would bounce back and forth about 5 points.Nothing looked odd to me […]
MoreMore TagUniversal III automatic / control relay switches
We are having some trouble with our Vandercook Universal III Automatic. We THINK it is in the relays. It will sometimes not start moving when it should. Switching the forward / reverse back and forth will sometimes help. It helps to set the press speed faster which is what makes us believe the problem is […]
MoreMore TagResurfacing our SP-15 ink drum roller
Maybe five years ago we bought our Vandercook SP-15 off eBay. When it got here the one major problem was that the ink drum was quite scratched from the automatic cleaning bar that scraped the ink off it. Lately we’ve been having trouble printing evenly with it and started to deduce that it might be […]
MoreMore TagTour de Lead Graffiti
As we did this on our Vandercook Universal III, we hoped some of you might be interested. leadgraffiti.com/news/tour-de-lead-graffiti . . . We would love for everyone to take a look at our effort in ‘endurance letterpress’ we called Tour de Lead Graffiti. We wanted to do a series of typographic posters that took the memorable […]
MoreMore TagUniversal III P just stopped
First, I’m looking for someone in the general vicinity of Delaware that can troubleshoot and possibly repair an automatic Vandercook Universal III. Know anyone? If not, is there some kind of electrician I might try contacting. Obviously, I need more than someone to hook up a 3-phase here. We were running our III the other […]
MoreMore TagRegistering deckle-edge paper…
We were printing a wedding invitation on Somerset paper on a Vandercook Universal III. The invitation is 22″ wide and has the deckle at both ends. The only thing I did special to start was that I added a second paper registration down the long edge of the paper to make sure it was fed […]
MoreMore TagSequence of printing events…
I’m wondering if the following sequence of events seems unreasonable to get a very, very clean print on a Universal III. The project is an important certificate for a major university signed by the president and all. This is essentially for the text part of the certificate, not including the recipient’s name. Printing area is […]
MoreMore TagNew record
I think this one set a new Vandercook record. $10,100.53 Looks like a nice press. I’d love to have that adjustable bed.
MoreMore Tag7 vs 10 mill mylar for Vandercook
The top sheet that we have on our Vandercooks is 7 mill mylar. I notice that Talas has rolls of both the 7 mill and 10 mill mylar. Although I don’t see any impact on printing quality the 7 mill will show indents when we’ve run a particularly large edition. I was wondering if anyone […]
MoreMore Tag