Restoring a screw or book press

[Shawn Pixley]

Hello all,

I acquired from my parents a large Screw Press / Bookbinding Press (Overall 24"x24"x13" fully tightened). It was made late in the 19th century and is really heavy. My parents used it for print-making when I was younger. My brother played with it and mildly damaged the lower platen. I got it disassembled, hauled up from my parents basement, reassembled on a pallet, and shipped to California.

The platens are flat. and the mechanism works smoothly. I will clean the rust and repaint it. The lower platen was painted / coated with a a thickish substance (Pitch, Bitumin, Paint, Not Japanning) and there are some pits in this coating. I could scrape off the coating, Patch the coating or ignore it and use a piece of harness leather as a substrate for the lower platen. Opinions?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but where else? I will post photos in a few minutes.

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Here is a shot of the blemishes in the lower platen.

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[Adam Herman]

the lower section is cast iron? if you want to restore it to like new or better, i would have the parts bead blasted and powder coated.

[Shawn Pixley]

It is all cast iron except the main screw and the nuts. However it is very heavy. The base alone is 225+ lbs. I don't feel much like hauling it around.(no truck, etc.). I am looking for high function, not a perfect restoration. The paint / pitch was to even out the surface imperfections on that lower platen. The cast iron is grooved or toothed below the pitch / paint. As I will use it for veneering and print making, I am leaning towards using harness leather as a substrate. There is a youtube where a guy filled it with epoxy. Seems like a bad idea.

[george wilson]

It would be nice to have the surface re milled,or better yet,Blanchard ground. I don't know what it would cost to get that done. If you found a little mom and pop machine shop,they would be easier to get them to do it at a more reasonable price. At least the milling option. Only a large shop would have a large Blanchard grinder.

Blanchard grinding,by the way,is the least precise grinding method. The tables of older table saws will have those grinding marks that rotate in a pattern around the center of the table. These days,they do a better job,and grind straight across the tops with giant surface grinders. The wheels are wide enough to span the distance between the miter gauge slots. So,you don't see and pieced together cuts.

[John Vernier]

If I were using it for veneering, I would probably put down a sheet of good quality plywood as a base caul in any case, so the cast iron might be good enough as is. For that matter that solution might be good enough for printing as well. I'd choose a good quality birch ply with no voids, or maybe make a base out of solid boards. Your idea of using leather should work fine, if you want a little bit of compressibility.

[Wayne Lomman]

Shawn, if you are going to use the press for different purposes, consider having separate loose liners. I can envisage uses for both a leather base and a rigid base. I would use good quality ply rather than solid timber if going that way. Also blasting is a bit overkill for cast iron unless it is heavily rusted. Depends how much metal one wants to lose. Cheers

[Stew Denton]

Hi Shawn,

You mentioned in your post that you do not want to haul it to have it milled, but of course as George suggested, that would be the better solution.

However, given your preferences for a practical, rather than a perfect, solution, after you clean off all of the old coating and remove any rust, if you have any major pits, I would consider using some hard epoxy material to fill the real bad pits. At that point I would use 1/4" tempered Masonite on the platen, and then either use epoxy paint on the Masonite or perhaps Formica.

The Masonite is a hard material (and cheap) that is pretty flat and stands up well to compression. It will be harder than any plywood, I think, probably harder than even Baltic birch. It will also be a great base for the Formica, and the Formica is very flat and very hard.

The advantage of this approach is that if it goes bad due to being gouged, or damaged in some other way, you can tear it off and replace it for not much money. I have used painted Masonite as the surface on a drafting board. It worked well.

The disadvantage is that the Formica is brittle and can crack. The Masonite is hard, but it too can crack. It will not be like having a cast irons surface with some sort of finish on it. It will be softer than that, and again given very high pressure in a tiny spot will likely crack.

With this approach only significant pits will need to be filled. Narrow pits will not be an issue, as the Masonite will bridge them and stand up well.

This is not a perfect solution, but given reasonable caution might be a good practical solution.

Stew

[Jim Koepke]

When I was in a print shop we used one of those for making note pads, among other things.

jtk

[george wilson]

I think the formica suggestion is the best option. Get a can of SPRAY ADHESIVE and spray it on BOTH the base and the formica. DO NOT try putting contact cement on the base. It WILL come out lumpy despite your best efforts. You can't apply that goo very evenly.

I have covered guitar amplifiers with fabric by spraying both surfaces. It hasn't come loose in 25 years.

[Shawn Pixley]

So here we are, 95% done. Under 30 days; but this might have been only a long weekend before I got sick. Still, progress.

I decided not to try and fix what isn't broken. Thank you for the suggestions everyone! So the first thing was masking and protecting the platen surface. The disassembled base is not solid but is very heavy (>200 lbs) so not the easiest for me to manhandle. (I don't know why it occasionally want a photo to be in thumbnail mode - see the bottom of the page).

The moving (top) platen had light surface rust on working side. The photo looks worse than it was. I wetsanded with MS at 600 Grit. and then 1,000. Waxed it up but left unpainted. Checked out very flat according to my straightedge. The bottom platen is also flat. I suspect they spent a lot of time on the top platen and then use the resin / surface against this to true each together.

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So what I thought was badly chipped paint ended up being a hundred years of inks and glues. There was a lot of time chiseling, chipping sanding, and otherwise removing this. The places without the ink had surface rust. Cleaned it all (not perfect, nor is the casting) and painted the top and sides.

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Turning it over, I found the real work. A scrape, a little sanding and EvapoRust treatment and it could be painted too. Let me tell you how fun this was... I did learn a lot about EvapoRust however.

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I want this on casters as it is really heavy to move without. It will sit in my Garage / Shop - hopefully under the TS extension. I cut some laminated poplar at the angles of the sand casting to fit snuggly. I figure gravity will hold it down when flipped right side up. Casters go on.

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Flipped over and assembled. I left the yoke and the wheel cleaned and waxed only. They had no rust on them. The yoke was painted Black. The wheel was japanned but most of it has worn off. The beer is for scale (shame about the flare). i didn't notice it at the time. You see a melamine covered piece of flat baltic birch between the platens. I have a few others of different thicknesses and resiliencies. I still have the lower platen masked off until I do a maiden pressing.

It probably would look better if I bead blasted and completely rebuilt and painted. But, my father's and grandfather's hands were on that wheel and I want the connection.

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One last comment. The previous owners left glue, ink, sweat, tears, and blood on this; but the working mechanism and the working surfaces were in great shape. These were people who valued and cared for their tools.

[Stewie Simpson]

A worthy restoration Shawn. Well done.

Stewie.