Today while printing our SP 20 started making a metallic dragging sound. It stops when the motor turns off and gets louder when the carriage is at the feed board with the rollers down, when there is pressure on the ink drum. I suspect that it’s because the chain is stretched or loose and is […]
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Power Carriage Parts page updated
The Power Carriage Parts page has been updated with a revised data table including new supplier info and notes by Erik Brunvand and a highly detailed pdf of his upgrade to a Universal I.
MoreUniversal 1 – appears to have a much deeper undercut than usual…
Hello! First time poster here so please bear with me if I’m going about anything wrong. Just to set the scene here: I recently accepted a technician role at the arts university in my hometown and there are a couple Vandercook presses here I’m in charge of. I spent a few years working at Hatch […]
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Fabricating a Universal 1 plexiglass dust cover…
We have three Universal I presses in our printshop and a number of the plexiglass dust covers have cracks from use. In the past, I had tried fabricating covers, but they never came out with the correct angle. So, I decided to do it right, and make a ‘buck’ to drape the heated plexiglass over. […]
MoreSP20 Ink Drum/Form Roller Contact Issues
Hello, we recently acquired a refurbished Vandy SP20 at UT Austin and it is having issues. The worst problem we’re having is the form rollers not making contact with the ink drum. We bought two new springs from Fritz for the ink drum and replaced those, so I think that is at the proper height. […]
MoreVandercook Uni I reintroducing past ink; ink drum calibration?
Hi! One of Virginia Book Arts’ Vandercooks (a Universal I AB P that was converted to hand-crank) has always had a difficult-to-clean ink drum* that would appear to be successfully cleaned by a printer post-printing session, but then randomly introduce bits of ink from past print sessions into future printing sessions (e.g. you’re printing with […]
More4T front metal rider roller loud squeaking and uneven inking
Hello! I just purchased my first Vandercook (4T) and all seems well except the front rider roller is very loud, and the side away from the operator doesn’t ink evenly at all. I can’t figure out from the manual if these rider rollers should have Nyliners on them? Attached a video to show the sound […]
MoreSP-20 grippers raising on return to feedboard
Yesterday while printing a plate the press started “clanging” about 3 inches away from the feedboard, the grippers rising correspond with the sound. It seems to be louder on the left side of the press, away from the hand crank. While it doesn’t affect the quality of prints, I am worried that something is wrong […]
MoreLever that holds the top rollers up loose
The top rollers fell on my hand while I was cleaning the rollers the other day because the lever latch (image below) that holds them the oscillator in place when up is loose and does not always click in place. Could someone advise how I go about stabilizing it? Many thanks!
MoreVandercook 4 cornucopia of press noises – rider roller and belt issues maybe?
One of the rider rollers on my Vandercook 4 is loose, rattles when the press is running and seems to be inking slightly unevenly as a result. I can’t find anything in the manual about a part that may be missing or broken, does the rider roller use nyliners also? The motor is pretty loud […]
MoreA Two-color Vandercook‽
Just when I thought there wasn’t much more to be learned about Vandercook history, I saw this circa 1943, full-page display ad in a trade journal on ebay for a ink manufacturer touting their two-color Vandercook. The running footer on the back of this page reads “Packaging Catalog” (WorldCat). The carriage looks similar to the […]
Morerollers + inconsistent inking
Hi Paul, Thank you so much for your help earlier this year with replacing our Vandercook [SP20] trip switch [springs]. I have run into another issue that is raising some questions now and I thought you may be a good person to ask. Our ink rollers work great some of the time and there are […]
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