My Wooden Proof Press- pic and details
It dawned on me yesterday while discussing home-made presses that I’ve never posted pictures of my own press. It’s not a great “Work of Art” or “Masterpiece of Engineering”, but it does put down a nice image. This one is the fifth press I’ve built, each one being an improvement over the previous model. The other four have been “loaned” to various printmakers and are still in service.
It’s a free cylinder design, similar to the Galley Proof Presses of oldentimes. The bed is made of two 3/4” thicknesses of Finnish Birch Plywood laminated together to make a solid 1.5” piece of wood. The rails are red oak, with a replaceable 1/8” thick strip of aluminum on top to prevent wear to the wood. If you look close, you can see set screws in the side and end that are used for lock-up. I used little brass inserts for the internal threads.
Since the rails are higher than type-high, I built up the bottom of the bed with a piece of 1/8” masonite with a few shims of 1/32” plywood from the hobby shop underneath.
The cylinder is what I’m REALLY proud of. It was made out of an old aluminum scuba tank with the ends cut off. (Believe me, a person cannot appreciate how thick a scuba tank is until they cut the ends off with a hacksaw. It was a lot tougher than I anticipated.) The ends are wood, as is the handle/axle…. and the entire thing was filled with damaged type and concrete. It weighs about 50 pounds. The blanket is a sheet of 60 durometer rubber (from McMaster Carr for $8) that I cut and laced onto the cylinder.
All in all, it cost me a little less than $100 to build….. and most of the parts an pieces are readily available at most home-improvement stores. The only part that might be hard to find is the old scuba tank, but one could also use a derelict fire extinguisher. They are quite round and have thick sidewalls, too.
How does it print? I love it! I’ve found that it has enough pressure to easily print a full 9 x 12 image on all but but the most heavily textured papers… and will put a deep impression on smaller areas (perhaps a 3x5 image) of softer papers like Lettra or Classic Laid.
So…. there it is. Hopefully the pics and description will be helpful to others who might also want to build their own presses.
Dave
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Dave,
Your reinvention of the wheel illustrates ingenuity and the spirit needed to further the quest of a much needed industry to make cylinder presses available to all. Thanks for posting your article and photograph.
Vance Studley Fine Press
“(Believe me, a person cannot appreciate how thick a scuba tank is until they cut the ends off with a hacksaw.)”
Holy Balls. That’s hardcore.
Nice looking machine, too. Ever tried making a second cylinder for inking?
-Grant
Thanks for the positive comments. It’s nice to not be working in a vacuum all of the time.
About the “inking cylinder” idea: Yes, I have actually built a press with a second inking cylinder….. but I don’t think that’s the best solution. I’m currently working on a small seperate inking carriage, much like the ones on old Vandercooks. It would have two or three rollers, and an ink slab at one end of the bed. Attached is a pic of the concept. BUT it might be some time before I get around to it. For now, i’ll probably stick to hand-inking.
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That is very cool. I know where there is an original cylinder from an antique version of this press. Should I try to grab it before it gets scrapped? Anyone feelin’ crafty?
Daniel Morris
The Arm Letterpress
Brooklyn, NY
Very cool solution to the where-do-I-find-one-? problem.
Dropping in some removable bearers might give you better inking control.
And I would stick with hand-inking. The inking carriage on the old press in the illustration never performed very well for me. I had one of those old Vandercooks here in KC till I sold it to the people at the Dirt Gallery. It still may be floating around town.
It lacks the eccentric cylinder axle to trip-off the return impression. I considered fabricating a hinged tympan-frame assembly but there is precious little space to tuck it in between the gear track and the bed.
If that cylinder that Daniel’s found has grippers and is the right size, someone could upgrade one of these basic Vandys to something more useful.
Calvert Guthrie
Ragpicker Press
Kansas City
Daniel….. if it were anywhere close to me, I’d grab it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I’m 1400 miles away on the Gulf Coast. BUT you should still try to get it. For a press-builder, it would save many, many hours of work.
Calvert…. I looked into a folding frisket/tympan set-up for my press, and actually made several trial set-ups. Like you, I decided that there is not enough room inside the rails to make it really worthwhile. SO, instead I have been using a pin-register system for close work, and quads stuck onto special furniture as paper guides for one color. I can easily hold a 1/64” register for multi-color projects…. which is far tighter than my blocks are cut anyway.
The lack of a trip is the one real flaw of such a simple press. It prints “in both directions”….
The press that you made is quite inspiring! Thanks for sharing how it was put together and for posting a picture- it looks great!