We are hoping to contribute to the maintenance and spread of the historical record related to letterpress, to help save old equipment, and to be able to demonstrate the process involved in the history of printing.

Photos by Wallflowers Press.

1869 iron handpress is home

We purchased an 1869 #5 Washington iron handpress manufactured by R. Hoe & Co. The serial number is 5331. We are really excited to have this addition to our press inventory and hope to make it available for workshops and demonstrations to anyone who will listen and wants to pull a print.

The platen has a printing area of 25" x 38" which is a pretty serious amount of typographic real estate. The size of this press is known as a double crown royal which is essentially two newpaper pages.

This is what our new baby looked like from the back three weeks ago. Actually we felt it was in pretty good shape until we had done the restoration. Looking back at it she was pretty rough.

We've learned a lot more about the care and handling of this kind of press since we bought it. An important book we had bought was the two-volume Nineteenth-Century Printing Practices and the Iron Handpress by Richard-Gabriel Rummonds. It was a lot better to move it while in parts instead of all together as when we brought it from Portland, Maine. Taking it apart also allowed us a much better opportunity to restore it right down to the smallest piece and we also know a lot more about how the press works.

There were no holes in the feet to bolt it down as on most presses of this size so we routed holes in a pair of 4" x 6" timbers for the feet of the press to fit into. Then we bolted a second pair of 4" x 6" so that they overlapped the toes of the feet which we hoped would provide extra stability. Then we strapped it down. If it came loose from this we were in serious trouble.

That second set of boards provided the place for the forklift to lift the main body which we guess weighs around 800 pounds.

We've been doing all of the restoration in that second bay to the left. It has taken a lot longer to get the certificate of occupancy to the building than we had suspected, but having that open space to work (16,000 square feet) has been nice.

In the doorway you can see two new cabinets of type we just got from Mike Kaylor.

This is Lennie, his forklift and the main body of 5331. That is his shop across the parking lot on the right. I think it is going to be great to know this guy and we'll probably get a good flow of beer going back and forth.

We are trying to be careful of the concrete floor. The owner still needs to put another layer of asphalt down which will level that out that step more.

The forks on the forklift are a bit short and there is a slight slope out and down for the first 18" or so of the floor so we were really needing to push to make sure we got the press into the studio far enough.

Walking into the studio, you will have our exhibition wall on your left leading to 5331. It should provide a nice view and give a good impression of our seriousness toward letterpress printing history.

We put it as close to the correct position as we could but those 4" x 6" timbers and the dollies it was on kept the press a bit pushed out from the corner.

This is the platen being delivered. This is easily the hardest part of the press to work with. The underside of what you see here was the rustiest part and turning it over to get to it took a bit of engineering.

Ray was just getting the platen in place so we could begin reinstalling it on the press.

The bed is upside down here and Ray and Lennie are trying to figure out how to rotate it.

We are having to spin the bed on the straps and at the same time pull the straps apart to get the corners around. This turned out to be pretty awkward.

The bed has two runners that fit in the rails and we were trying to be really, really careful with them so as to not scratch them in any way.

The platen had slid off the forks when we were moving it and we were being a lot more careful with the bed and going a lot slower this time around.

We needed to take the straps off first and then take the nuts and washers off the bolts. We could then lift the two top timbers off.

Then using a jack we lifted the press, first to one side to remove the timber with the routed holes (you can see the hole near the back in the photo below) and set the main body of the press in place.

Once we got it in place it was not quite level. We cut some thin pieces of oak the size of the feet (which you can see below) so that we could shim the press to get it as level as possible.

Jill is pretty happy to see those rails in place.

Here is Jill moving the platen into place. This was clearly going to be the hardest part as you have to get it centered under the supports and also be able to raise it onto the bolts that hold it in place.

The engine hoist (also borrowed from Lennie) ended up being a tight fit, trying to get the platen in far enough and at the same time not destroy the paint we had so painstakenly applied.

Once the platen was in place the problem was to lift it onto the bolts which you can see below the springs on each side of the press. We were trying to be very careful to not do any damage to the threads. The ratchet straps worked great as we could slowiy lift the platen and shift it in very small degrees.

We got so caught up in getting close we forgot to take photos of moving the bed into place. Essentially we did it the same way as we did with the platen except you had a lot more room to maneuver.

The two photos below give you a good idea of the changes we've made in the rust on the press.

Before?

After!

Ah, #5331 is home at last.

Jill couldn't wait to give it a pull. Now to get some inking balls.

We hope to print some small, fine press books (you could get eight pages to one side of a signature) and some really big posters.