Hi Folks,
Sorry if this has been covered before…
Haven’t printed on this machine yet, but in the course of general lube and clean-up, I detect one issue: in the home/start position, the carriage doesn’t quite sit well-settled to the left/feedboard. it wants to roll off of the correct home/detente position and almost begin travel.
Thanks for insights,
Mike
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A proof press resource
Thanks again everyone; I am keen to get this machine running properly and the accumulated wisdom here lets me think I can do it. The mechanical drawing with numbered teeth(!) should help. I’ll try to take a few before and after pics though they may be fairly undramatic.
Attached is side view of Universal I cylinder, scan slightly crooked, but it shows that the face of the cylinder where the gripper bar attaches to the cylinder is perpendicular to the bed of the press at the start position. Thus the gripper bar is slightly advanced towards the bed. That is the proper start position for this model.
Bear in mind that most Vandercook gripper bar do not sit exactly at the 12 o’clock position. 12 o’clock is usually the seam between cylinder and griper bar, where the packing hem is tucked. That cants the grippers and sheet gages enough that a sheet will slide under them more easily.
The cylinder gear rack is sectional. Remove the longer middle pieces on each side, keep track of the springs between them and the shorter register racks. Move the carriage so that the cylinder gears clear last tooth of the racks. While holding the carriage in place, turn the cylinder face in the direction and distance needed. Push the carriage back onto the racks, then rolling back to the feed board. It have take a couple tries to get it right, but one person can do this. A missing spring (x- ) between the racks, could cause the slight misalignment of the registered racks as Ray suggested and account for the thunk.
At an institute of higher learning, not long ago, I saw a feed board on a Universal I P set back as a safety measure. But this made registering paper to the grippers difficult. I suggested changing it back. We did and all were happy. No accidents have been reported.
Thanks all; yes, I discovered the carriage spring in 3 pieces, however Ray may be onto something too… I suspect the cylinder was removed and put back a little off of a firm 12 o’clock for the grippers at the feedboard. There is a replacement feedboard but the distance to the grippers seems too great, and cylinder travel has a louder “thunk” mid-bed than I feel it should (compared to SP-15). How tricky is properly re-indexing the cylinder?
Thanks also to the blog as I was able to correct the stroke length setting on the non-operator side.
I agree it’s the carriage spring (X-11022).
I would check for a weak or broken spring under the flipper that holds the cylinder at rest. It is on the non-operator side, where the bed bearers approach the support for the feed table.
Any chance the cylinder has been removed? Might be possible that one side is not set into the right gear teeth.
Worth checking that the press is level.