Getting Melissa's Press Ready!

Melissa will be picking up her 1916 Chandler & Price 10x15 New Series Platen Job Press soon.  What needed to be done to it was mainly making it operable.  It needed a new motor and belt, a switch, switch wiring, motor wiring, new front and swivel boards, and a de-gunked ink fountain.  She also needed two new 2x8 boards to rest upon.  I wanted to give Melissa a preview of the press, now that it's ready to roll.  Here goes!

The first group of photos shows the ink fountain which had to be disassembled, cleaned, the ink blade scraped and "sanded".  Then, with cleared oil ports, it was put back together and bolted upon the press.  All petcocks turn easy.

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Amazing how a photo changes with the addition of a flash!

The next grouping is the press set-up.

I installed a 'safety switch' to provide easy and quick operation.

The switch is bolted on the left hand under-side of the front feed board.

The motor is a 1/2 hp Marathon 1725 rpm Farm Motor, sporting a 1" pulley for the 'v' belt.  This provides a cycling speed of one impression every 2.5 - 3 seconds.  It can be slowed by belting direct to the shaft.  Notice that the motor is wired to a female outlet.  The switch actually controls the outlet, rather than the motor.  You can see the steel shielded "extension cord" plugged into the outlet.  The power is switched here, rather than the motor.  I wired it this way for ease of installation.  The motor and outlet stay together, with the switch wiring hardwired into the top of the outlet box.  The box is then literally plugged into a standard wall outlet.

These are the new boards, both cut from  furniture grade birch ply.  Aluminium channeling edge the front and rear of each board.  These are cut to the original boards' dimensions.  The original boards - also ply - had delaminated over the past 96 years. 

The ink fountain is re-mounted.  This is the original "full" fountain that came with this press.  Also included is the original motor bracket holding the original 1916 Kimble motor, which works, but really should be rebuilt.  I managed to find the original leather belt.  I do not know if the original belt actually has the integrity to power the press, it's pretty dry, but it can still serve as a 'sizer' and model for a new one, should the new owner decide to actually rebuild the motor.

Here is a view behind the press, showing the motor, the outlet, the switch wiring and the plug-in power cable.

. . . and, of course, the power cable is plugged into an outlet.  I have enough cabling to travel a considerable distance, should the press need to be place a considerable distance from the nearest available wall outlet.

And finally, an added plus!  I located a pair of stock gripper bars, or "frisket bars" which may have been the original grippers for this press.  This press had spent some time on the loading dock at Mama's Sauce, next to a Kluge and a Heidelberg, and the associated hardware for all these presses were scattered hither and yon.  Joey at Mama's Sauce [Ed. note: thanks for the correction Nick!], let me poke around to hunt down the missing hardware for this press as I was in the process of re-habbing her.  This was when I located the leather belt.  The grippers were not together, but they are mirror matches of each other.

Just a side note: this press also came with a chase, which is 'stone' level, and fits the type bed easily.  This was important because ease of fit is not always the case.  I think the chase is original to the press as well.

She runs well.  There is a video of her in operation up on YouTube already.

That's it for now.  BTW, the press is already skidded for easy fork-lifting, Melissa, so it should be an easy pick-up.  I also have a set of come-alongs to tie her off in your moving truck. 

-gary