HELP!!! Before I Go Bald - Platen Leveling

I am the proud owner of a 10 x 15 New Series Chandler & Price! This is my story … One fine day of printing I noticed that I had a broken impression screw (previous owners fault), so I made a few calls just to verify what I already knew. I needed to take off the platen and find a new screw. Which I did by taking a lovely drive down to San Jose to Hicks Brothers and took part in a pick and pull type operation of removing a platen off one of their unfixable Old Styles and retrieving a old/new screw (and yes the screw was a match). Fast forward two weeks, I put my new/old screw in, yell at the husband to help me heft the 70lb plus platen back on Daisy Mae. After many articles and a few emails and adjusting a platen on a 5 x 8 and 6 x 9 (obviously this hasn’t made me an expert in any means), I lock up a trusty q,w,x, and z. I run my first pull and squashed some type to my dismay, anyways after 15 sets of loosing, tightening, pulling, and checking all my four letters are perfect!!!! I can only tell you how super happy I was!! Until the next day when I went to print my daughter’s graduation announcements, I had type crush and not in the kinda type crush you want. I’m talking too deep of an impression for lead type, type crush (though not smashed type like my first four cornered Z). A lass I break out my wrench and start loosing, tightening, pulling, and checking again (for the last two hours). My bottom right corner facing the press has the strongest impression even when everything is barely printing, this is also where the offending broken impression screw was. I am now forgoing the four corner tetris lookup and keeping with the everything in the middle centered type action. Can someone please write a reassuring response that everything will be okay and maybe shed some light on a faster way to level her out! Helpful hints would also include the effects of turning one screw and what happens to the others!
Thank you for your time,
As of Right Now I Still Have Hair Shannon

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Still Have Hair…
Adjusting a platen is easier with a tool like the one sold by John Falstrom www.perennialdesigns.net

We rely upon this tool for consistent results… every time. Assuming no broken, cracked, failing or non original parts it does indeed work as advertised every time.

We have platen impression screws in inventory.

Tom

T and T Press Restoration
www.tandtpressrestoration.com

I regularly have to set platens for Columbian and Albion presses cos students bash them, do not put in level work-it is vital to understand that you always work with pairs of screws, whether in the diagonal, or in x and y dimensions, ie never tighten one without loosening the opposite or other one of the pair , and conversely if you loosen one then tighten up the other.
so you develop a pattern of diagonals testing, then in the x and y, then back to the diagonals etc…..

I’ve never adjusted a press for parallelism between the platen and bed myself, but it seems that rather than using a go/no-go gage strategy, wouldn’t it be easier to measure the gap and work off of that information instead?

Starrett makes a telescoping gage with a 12” handle that would be ideal for reaching down and measuring the gap:

http://www.starrett.com/metrology/product-detail/metrology/metrology-pro...

That would be a slick tool to have if it will measure down to
.968”. I don’t know the cost, but John Falstrom’s gauge is probably less than $10 and can be used also as a roller height gauge. Very nice tool.

This topic has been covered a number of times on Briarpress but I’ll add my 2 cents.

I’ve used 4 pieces of 18pt type high rule locked vertically across the chase. Make sure you have what would be your typical packing, a sheet of pressboard, some text weight paper, some lightweight paper and of course tympan in place.
Then you pull an impression and review for high or low spots. Make your adjustment to one screw at a time only, in small increments. Pulling an impression with each change. I number and indicate on each sheet which screw and which direction it was turned so I can evaluate my progress. When you have all four bars printing clean and consistent tighten everything up and hopefully you’ll never have to adjust it again.

Got it!!! Time and patience, also lots of little notations on each tiny adjustment. Thank you

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Btw, Not that it is too important but we used 48pt Ms or Ws in 4 corners to test impression as they were large and strong.