First Impression with my newest homemade press!

A few weeks ago I decided to build a Handpress- style printing press simlar to an Albion or Washington. The idea was to build a machine that was a bit more basic… more traditional in it’s function than my other presses. …. BUT one that could be easily constructed with locally available materials. I also wanted it to be relatively small and portable.

So I sold the galley press and started building a Handpress. As it turned out, my creation is not very traditional looking. Instead of using a single screw pushing the platen down, I used two screws pulling the platen downward. This has the advantage of not having to build a large framework to hold the compression loads… thus it can be more easily constructed, IF you can get the screws to turn together. Luckily, Veritas makes a very nice twin-screw vise that works like a charm. It has two very stout screws connected by a chain-drive so that they stay synchronized. This vise mechanism became the basis for my press.

The press I made is small/medium sized…. a Royal Octavo (7 x 11) image area, and a 9 x 12 paper size. The base is 4 layers of 1/2” Finnish Birch plywood laminated together to make a 2” thick piece. The platen is a laminated piece, 2 1/4” thick. My experience with other presses tells me that this is more than sufficient to handle the stresses on the small image area without warping.

Mathematically, it works like this: if you use a 2 ft handle you get approximately 301.4 : 1 lever ratio, so a 50 lb input force is translated to 15072 lbs ( 7.5 tons)of raw force. Since the chase is 7 x 11 (77 square inches), and it’s typically used at 50% image area, you wind up with 391 psi. This is more than sufficient to print virtually any paper.

Anyway…. the press is not finished. It’s still rather ugly, actually. I’ve still got to install some rails for the coffin to slide in and out on, finish the tympan/frisket, and varnish it….. but I couldn’t resist the temptation to “fire it up” early, and test it out. So last night I took an old block and pulled a few prints. The quality difference between this press and my older presses is incredible. The pressure is more than adequate (actually it borders on overkill) and the mechanism keeps the platen perfectly parallel. It’s also VERY easy to work… far easier than with my roller-style presses.

I’m sure that the first question someone is going to ask is “How much did it cost?” That’s hard to say for certain since all of the wood came from off-cuts from other projects and I got the Veritas Vise at a garage sale for virutally nothing. BUT if I had to guess what it would cost someone to build it using all new materials, I’d say ~$350 or so. Time-wise, it took just under two weeks of working evenings to build it.

So… there it is: A twin-screw Handpress…. a hybrid of old ideas and modern materials. It’s not perfect of course, but it was fun to build and should serve me well for the next few decades. More importantly, I’m hoping that it will inspire other would-be press builders who might be out there.

Dave
Winking Cat Press

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