In response to my emails to the LETPRESS listserve on my broken Pilot situation, Chris Jackson wrote me
and said he was moving from Providence to Kentucky and picking
up a Vandercook on the way, and that he had a press that would
be a nice upgrade from my Pilot that he would let me have at
very reasonable cost. After some discussions, we arranged for
me to come down to his studio and pick it up one Saturday.
I reserved a Honda Element at zipcar, and we made a family
trip of driving down to Providence (we don't get out of the
city much since we don't have a car of our own). I also
brought a bunch of tools, straps, and a handtruck. We arrived
and inspected the press at the studio, which was in a cool old
building in Providence.
Providence
By taking it apart a little bit and with plenty of help from
Chris, we got the press loaded into the vehicle and strapped
down.
Ultraviolet keeps an eye on the payload
The next day, I rolled the handtruck out of the car on 2x6
ramps I knocked together, then took it apart some more and
moved it up onto the porch since it looked like rain.
Cleaning
4/2007
The press was pretty dirty, so I put a wire wheel on my angle
grinder and spent a few hours brushing off lots of greasy
black stuff and disintegrating paint (I checked the paint for
lead first). Kind of reminded me of the caked up layer of
stuff on the bottom side of a car. I followed this up with
some hand wire brushing, then a wipe down with Boeshield T9
which is kind of waxy and solventy, so it was good to take off
more dirt and leave a good rust resistant coating. At the end
of this I was dirtier than I have been except on a few
occasions in my life; my carharts got a huge collection of new
permanent black stains!
Summer Street Press Works
After this I moved the pieces up into our spare kitchen that
is currently used for storage and a cat toilet.
Reassembly
4/2007
Let me tell you, this press is a thing of beauty. Check out
the old-style curved spokes on the flywheel. All the other
castings have pleasing proportions and curves, and in general
have a very attractive fin de siècle look going on. The whole
thing also now has a deep, dark, patina that is full of
history and promises an interesting future. Of course some of
that nice patina comes off on your hands or clothes if you
touch it, but I'll probably end up cleaning the points that
you are likely to touch with simple green.
The press seems to be pretty much an exact copy of the Damon
and Peets 6x10, seen here
at Briar Press online museum. My press has cross brace
castings in the base though, which the picture doesn't
have. The only marking on my machine is cast into the roller
synchronizing plate, and says 'NATIONAL'. Here are the cleaned
up and moved parts:
Frame and shafts
Flywheel
Ink disk and bed
Platen assembly
Treadle, roller lock, arms
Incidentally, I also weighed each part before putting it
back on. Here is what I found:
Component
Weight (lbs)
Base, shafts, gears, roller
arms
140
Flywheel
60
Bed assembly
40
Platen assembly
55
Treadle
16
Arms, platen shaft, throwoff
lever
40
Ink disk, platen spring
10
Feedboard arms and tables
17
Total
378
So only 378 lbs. Pretty dang light for a floor press! And
it looks substantially beefier than the Pilot, so
hopefully it will in fact be an upgrade in terms of more
even and stronger impressions. I'm also looking forward to
the foot powered continuous operation, though it seems
like it might take some getting used to.
Here are a few interesting detail shots:
Left side crankwheel
Right side crankwheel/gear
An interesting detail for the crank pin to wheel
connection; looks like its held in like a
rivet... wierd.
Crank pin connection to wheel
First part to go back on was the bed assembly. This
attaches by two bolts on either side of the bed through
the frame.
Bed assembly in place
Next I positioned the crankshaft. This is the shaft that
is driven by the treadle and has the flywheel mounted on
one side, and a pinion gear to mesh with the large gear on
the main shaft. The shaft runs in cast iron journals that bolt
to the sides of the frame. I adjusted the meshing of the
two gears and tightened the bolts up.
Journals positioned and tightened
The platen assembly mounts to the frame using a small
diameter shaft, shown mostly pushed out in the photo
below. This assembly is pretty heavy and rests funny on
the base if you let it flop all the way out, so I put the
spring on its boss such that I can support the platen on
the press after I attach it with the shaft. There is a bit
of lateral play after installation; I'll have to take this
up with some washers at some point.
Platen assembly ready for installation
Platen assembly installed
Now the platen shaft goes into its housing in the platen
casting. This big shaft has two smaller shafts turned in
its ends, machined off center. This allows for the
throwoff action; the throwoff lever rotates this shaft and
thus brings the platen slightly further or closer to the
bed. The main arms attach to the offcenter turnings on the
ends.
Platen eccentric shaft and left arm going on
Left arm attach to drive pin
I reset the bolt on the throwoff lever so it could get
maximum translation of the platen across its range of
motion.
Radial positioning of throwoff on platen shaft
The rollers freely swing on the main shaft. There is a
lock plate casting that bolts on the back of the rollers
to keep them synced up, and an arm that attaches to the
platen to make the rollers travel through their motion as
the platen goes forward and backward. Notice the repair of
the roller drive arm; I wonder how that got broken?
Doesn't seem too worrying since this shouldn't normally be
a high load path unless something gets jammed.
Roller lock plate
Roller drive arm connection to platen
assembly
Left side pieces installed
Now the treadle gets hooked up. The foot pad had been
broken off the treadle casting at some point and
repaired, but it looks ok for now.
Treadle pivot shaft
Treadle crankshaft hook
Treadle positioning collars
Treadle hook lock pin
The pics at Briar Press and the look of the
shaft indicate that the standard position is flywheel
left, but it had more recently been installed on the
right side - perhaps to make more clearance around the
throwoff lever? I decided to start with the wheel on the
left and see how that goes.
