Greetings,
I am involved with a voluntary museum which has a Vandercook 325AH which has not been used for a long time. We have got it freed up and seemingly nearly ready for use, but there seems to be a feed tray missing and there seems to be a problem with the paper tray on the end (apologies if I am not using the correct terminology but this is all new to me). It looks as if it should rotate upward but we can’t get any movement out of it. Any help, suggestions, places where we can find a manual would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Thanks for all the replies and the help, particularly from Paul. I will keep people informed as to how we get on and any successes we have with the press. We are hoping to have posters printed on it available for Cruise Ship visitors to the Museum and also on Waitangi Day, which is like our country’s Founders Day and very important to the Museum – thousands turn up for the day so it will be great to have the Vandercook going on the day. You can find out more about our Museum and the Printing Shop at my website here;
http://www.okainsbaymuseum.co.nz
Cheers and thanks
The delivery belts are part NM-88 and our parts books indicates that we have these in stock.
Fritz
There isn’t any missing feeding tray, but you are missing the feeding finger assembly. Those brackets standing up at the corners of the feed table? There should be a bar between them, with a cam roller on the far side, and the sheet is fed into fingers suspended from the bar. This supports the sheet off the lip of the feed table, and as the cylinder returns to the feed table, the grippers lift automatically and are timed to close on the sheet. Then as the cylinder is advanced, the cam roller swings the fingers out of the way. Even without it, you can still feed manually, the same way you would with automatic grippers as on the nos. 3 and 4, carefully feeding the sheet to the grippers just before they close.
You are also missing the tapes for the sheet delivery. They were cloth originally, am not sure if cloth “press tapes” are still available anywhere, but Dave Seat the travelling repairman can install a set of synthetic tapes. Personally I’d consider getting rid of the delivery entirely (you might need to remove the extra cam wedge that opens the grippers so the sheet gores head-in to the delivery from the top of the cylinder. (Those wheels on the rear of the cylinder are to keep the tail of the sheet in contact with the cylinder after the grippers release, and provide a push into the delivery.) The delivery table may just be rusted in place, don’t recall any latches involved.
A very nice feaature is this press has the ink fountain and auxiliary ink plate and rollers.
And of course, NA Graphics is the first place to look for the manual (photocopy). Have seen them on eBay occasionally too.
Although very rough, the essential parts are accounted. What’s missing are the tapes for the automatic sheet delivery, but this is not necessary.
Below is a photo of a 325GH. The difference is that the AH does not have a pedal to open the paper grippers.