Resurrecting Kelsey Part 1

I regularly print successfully on my Kelsey 6x9. An area historical society asked me to clean and run a Circa 1920 Kelsey 9x13. I’ve had multiple problems. The chase bed and chase won’t fit properly into the top latch. The chase and chase bed move when the impression is applied. The trucks catch on the chase bed runners when returning. Areas of the art are splotchy even when I back off on impression points and add them selectively. Thoughts?

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Sounds like the chase and chase bed came from a different press. From what I’ve read, the factory hand-fitted each press’s parts to one another so bits from one press might not fit well in another. This would be especially true if the replacement parts came from a later model. Kelsey Company certainly made changes to the casting patterns over the years.

Unfortunately, there may not me much you can do besides wait and see if a parts machine comes up some time. This will be made more difficult owing to the rarity of the 9 x 13. You could try talking to John Barrett of Letterpress Things ( http://www.letterpressthings.com/ ) or Alan Runfeldt of Excelsior Press ( http://excelsiorpress.org/ ) to see if they have any parts available, though.

Michael Hurley
Titivilus Press
Memphis, TN