Minimum expectations: Building a book press

Just as you would think, a book press is for pressing books, their covers, and their pages. This operation flattens irregularities and curling, and also also binds the book together as glue dries.

Most presses look something like this (but not red).

Cast iron book press

Let's build one
Because they are now considered collectibles, book presses are fairly expensive. Whenever you see a price tag hidden from view (above), you know it's going to be bad news.

So of course, I decided to make my own with scrap parts and a few flea-market finds.

Most presses are steel or iron, but some are wood. The one I build will use both materials.

The first parts
This is an old car jack—a flea market buy for $10. The acme screw it contains is just what I needed, and a new one would cost more than twice that amount. Of course, my labor is free.

Old car jack with acme screw and an old vacuum-tube radio

The flea-market radio will not be used for the book press project. In case you're interested, it was also $10, and its price tag was plainly visible.

Building the book press
The picture below shows the base and two pipe columns. The pipes will support a bridge that holds the screw and platen.

The base, bridge, and platen are made from glued-up sections of a shelf that was destined for the trash.

Laying out and cutting some curves on the bridge
The bridge is shown here after gluing together three slabs of wood, marking the curves, and cutting with a band saw. The tangent-curve procedure was still in my brain after teaching geometric construction for about twenty years.