Cleaning Improved Golding Platen Press

Hi there,

I recently bought a golding letterpress! So excited. But now I am trying to clean it up. Any ideas? I bought Clean Green, Goo gone, etc. I also have some stainless steel brushes. Is this a good idea? Please let me know! There is alot of gunk built up in the crevices.

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no one?

There’s been a lot of discussion on how to clean presses in various threads. Search around the archives here and at the Letpress list.

Methods I’ve heard used include DIY car wash pressure hose followed by a thorough drying and re-oiling. That’s probably quickest and least intensive of effort. but leaves the possibility of surface rust if you don’t dry it enough.

Disassembly, sand (or walnut shell) blasting, repainting and reassembly is the other extreme. Takes time and small parts are sometimes lost. Reassembly can be fun, so take pictures of everything before and after you take it off the press.

In between are various noxious (and some a bit less so) chemicals that will get rid of the ink, grease and oils. With or without disassembly. With or without lots of elbow grease.

It all depends on the state of the press and what you want to preserve of it’s current look. How much effort you want to put into it.

Is this a table-top Golding, a Pearl, or one of the larger ones?

Here is a link to a good blog in general and the start of a thread about restoring a Pearl press.

http://gjohanson.blogspot.com/2008/06/pearl-press-recovery.html

Here’s a link to a website about Pearl presses with a lot of information.

http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/golding-guru/

Rich
Front Room Press
http://frontroompress.com
http://frontroompress.blogspot.com

thank you thank you so much i completely appreciate it!

Oh and It is a golding 7X11 improved pearl :) So excited!