Reviving an 1870s printing press (part 2)

Part 2
Making things harder than they should be
If you read part 1 of this fascinating series, you know that I had to make a chase base for a 19th-century letterpress machine.

I started by measuring every part of the press that would hold the new chase bed. The goal was to have a press that would eventually use a standard open chase that would bypass the hard-to-get closed chases.

Here's a bit of my sketching and dimensioning and notes and corrections, all scribbled on two sheets of my Department of the Navy memo pads.

A simple approach
After a few days of making prototypes from plywood and trying to make things fit, I realized I was doing more work than necessary; all I really needed was a simple rectangular base. 

NOTE: Some of the following information is not correct if you use newer 6X10 chases for later Kelsey presses (as I did). See my later blog (part 4) about lowering the chase. JHS

If you're doing this at home, the size should be about 6.75" X 11.625", and about 3/8" thick. I used aluminum. It will look something like this when mounted in the press (without the chase). You should see two cast-iron shoulders that support and position the chase base. They are located near the center of the bed, a few inches apart. They are hidden in this view.

The chase will be supported by two steel angle tabs, visible at the bottom-left and -right of the base. These two tabs are the exposed legs of steel 1" X 1" angles, cut about 2-inches long. I used J-B Weld epoxy to attach them to the back of the chase. See more details below:

Position the two angles to avoid conflict with  two cast-steel shoulders on the base.
The aluminum base is resting on and hiding these shoulders in this photo.

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Details of the steel angles for supporting the chase. Leave enough space between them to clear the cast-iron shoulders on the press.

Two tabs (angle legs) at bottom edge of chase bed

The steel angles are attached with epoxy to the back surface of the bed

At the moment, the epoxy seems very capable, but I may decide to drill through and use machine screws and nuts to strengthen it. In any event, the two tabs are a good support for the steel chase, as shown below.

Steel chase supported with angle tabs

DETAIL: Angle tab at lower-left corner of chase

Next: Reworking (or replacing) the spring-loaded clamp bolts

Reviving an 1870s printing press (part 1)

Part 1
I think we have a problem
Sometime at the end of the 19th century, William A. Kelsey decided to manufacture printing presses. His first batch was not successful, but he and his company went on to be one of the biggest sellers of tabletop letterpress printing presses.

This particular Kelsey Excelsior may have been one of his less-successful models. It really takes some strength to move that handle and make a print. And the motion is not smooth. That's what I get for buying a press that was stored in a dark attic.

Kelsey 6" x 10" letterpress printing press, circa 1880

This press is different from most platen (the flat surface where the paper goes) presses in that it uses an non-standard chase (the steel frame that holds the type and images). Most chases are are similar to a picture frame, like this one:

Letterpress chase for holding type and images

This open chase clamps to a flat steel base, whereas the chase for the old press above has a built-in flat base, something like a shadow box. The old press did not include a chase or rollers, but otherwise seems to be good working order. That's in spite of several broken parts that are welded back together.

So I set out to bring this 120-year-old printing press back to life, and the first task was to make a permanent base for the newer style chase. 



Next time: Part 2: Making things harder than they should be . . .

Building a book press (part 2)

The lead screw (pronounced leed)
The lead screw has acme threads—great for transferring motion instead of fastening one thing to another. Another term is motion translation, as when we convert rotary motion (turning the screw) to linear motion (moving the platen down).

As you know if you've been attentive to this entire lesson, my acme screw came from an old automobile scissor jack. Its specs are 3/4" diameter and 6 threads per inch.

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Learning opportunity

Look, it's a diagram. Don't we all love diagrams?

Notice the flattened tops and bottoms on the acme thread?

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Connecting the lead screw to the bridge
The thoroughly cleaned (more or less) lead screw with the nut attached (right). This is the nut that you see in the picture below. See how it all comes together?














Bottom of bridge showing acme nut epoxied into a roughly hexagonal hole.
I use the term  "roughly hexagonal" because I made that hole with a chisel and hammer. Epoxy addresses and forgives a multitude of sins.

















Nothing lost in translation
Here, the lead screw is fastened to the bridge, and moves up or down as you turn it. See—rotary motion to linear motion. It's a miracle.

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Next, the finished product

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.

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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.

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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.

Arrows point to the barely visible curve construction lines

Following the curves with the band saw

The bridge after cutting but before sanding

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So far, it fits—but there is much more to be done.

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Next, installing the lead screw in the bridge

Batting .300 with radios

Blue and yellow make a happy fellow
After destroying radio after radio, I'm having a run of luck—or maybe I'm learning what I'm doing. I've now repaired three out of ten—a batting average that's good enough for the major leagues.

This is radio 1 (background) and my newly painted radio 2 in its yellow-and-blue cabinet. Best of all, they actually play.

RCA VICTOR All-American Five

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The brown Sentinel radio
I left this cabinet as I found it. Maybe I'll paint it purple sometime soon. This one also plays.

SENTINEL All-American Five Radio

More later.

World's Largest Security Light sold by Amazon

Honesty in advertising
Take a look at the advertising graphic. They're trying to let us know that the sensor reacts to motion from as far away as "26 feet."

If the shadowy man (probably an intruder) is six feet tall, the distance shown is fairly close to 26 feet if measured from the light's center to the man's feet. Oops, he has no feet, but you know what I mean.

And if that's right, then the light is 12 feet wide. That's a big light!

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Let's take a closer look
Here's the light mounted on a brick wall. A brick (plus a mortar joint) is eight inches across. It's a good construction dimension, and three bricks in a row are almost exactly 24-inches across.

I can count three bricks plus a bit more under the light, so it is about 24" wide. That seems more realistic, but it's still a big ol' light.

Please note there are no intruders brave enough to approach this behemoth.

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Shedding some light on this
Here's an actual photo from the Amazon page.

The truth
The actual dimensions for this light are "7.4 x 2.4 x 5.3 inches", making the light's face slightly larger than a dollar bill.

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I'm not the only one
As I wrote this blog, an Amazon customer posted this question and received a polite (but cryptic) reply from the seller:

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An added-value literary analysis
To me, "lum is the brithness one candel light" sounds like the Jabberwocky poem by Lewis Carroll.

۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝۝

Beltline art

Self promotion:
This took seven cans of spray paint.

🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶🔶

More belt-line art:

A tribute to Boxcar Willie. Please note the happy sleeping couple showing not a bit of shyness. They are observed by a happy little cowboy and his smiling dog. Some cute little flowers wave in the breeze. Behind them are two mountain peaks—probably the Grand Tetons.

It's just rife with symbolism.

The caption reads"Safety in Vodka." Hmmm.

Back to the 1940s

After making three non-working radios into really non-working radios, the fourth radio has come to life. It's an RCA table model with all new capacitors and one new tube.



This one actually functions like an old AM radio should. This short video may or may not play on your computer.

Let me know if you can view it (and hear it). I'm still trying to master this embedded video concept.

Next victim
This is an old Silvertone (Sears Roebuck) farmhouse radio, designed to be powered by two dry-cell batteries. Each of its five tubes uses only 1.4 volts.

Note the intricate tuning cable-and-pulley setup.

New hobby—old radio—new things to learn

First, you get an old radio
Not as easy as it sounds, but I finally found an old vacuum tube radio. My goal: to bring it back to life.
Here's the victim, an RCA 8X541. Never heard of it? Neither have I, but this is what it looks like—fancy maroon plastic case with gold dial. Suitable for any decor.




A bad beginning
I found the radio for sale with a DNW label. That means does not work. An examination affirmed it. Here's the power cord.



Old tube tester 
I don't really know what I'm doing, so I tested the tubes. Three of its five tubes didn't score well on the old tube tester. They failed, but still qualified for the Hope Scholarship.



It's an old tube tester because:

• it is old
• it tests old tubes.

Before
Here are the guts, exposed for all to see. All those yellowish cylinders are paper-wound, wax-coated capacitors. All were bad.



After
It's not as cluttered—because today's caps are small.


















I changed about 10 capacitors, with one to go. The big yellow one is on its way to me.

The notepad is from a print-shop auction about 30 years ago. I have hundreds of these pads for notes, sketches, and calculations. 

Next step? To learn what the next step should be. More reading and more YouTube.

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Ugh—yum—ugh

Long walk with pizza in the middle
It began as a short walk, but I convinced Joan that a walk along the unfinished Beltline would be an adventure. So we tried the section between Boulevard and Hill Street.

We averaged about 20 minutes per mile, including fighting through the kudzu, but not counting the stop at Grant Central Pizza. Here's the map.

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Is that why they named it Hill Street?
That's all kudzu between me and the top of the hill. Well, not really. That's a steel tower on the left.

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Rest stop
Just so you know, it's not as comfy as it looks.




















The bed my not look so great, but you awaken to the sweet scent of kudzu blossoms.
And yes, kudzu really has flowers, and they smell something like Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

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Indiana Joan in a clear area

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No wonder trains quit using this trestle


Erosion reveals the wooden pilings supporting the concrete trestle.

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We found a lost dog on Atlanta Avenue.

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