what are these

Hi, everyone I have used/fixed and rigged Heidelberg platens for years, even made a pair of gripper arms from piano hinges, lol, but unfortunately never was able to use them to print, I have had these two pieces in my one of my tool boxes for years and I have no idea what they are used for, by looking at them, they look like they have something to do with the ink well, but that is just a guess on my part.

I would appreciate any info on them as I no longer have the platens and just looking to find happy homes for the left over parts I have.
Thank you, Press on

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Put them in the ink fountain to control the amount of ink. If you running a firm with heavy ink coverage in center you can put more ink in one area if the fountain.

I would have thought you would use the adjustment keys for that. These look to me to be dividers to put in the fountain to enable a multi-color split fountain.

Bob

Fountain clumps for running split fountain. If you’re looking to sell, I’m interested.

You can email me at [email protected]

AdLib press got it, these allow allow split fountain printing

Hey kimarkstuff
Any pics of the piano hinge gripper bars?

Use to wrap them up in oiled paper and could be used for split colour or for when only half the duct needed ink in it. The oiled paper made it easier for cleaning - just unwrap and throw the paper away.

Hi everyone, Thanks for the responses, much appreciated,
Mike H. sorry I don’t have them anymore, I/we used them for about 4 years, they were made for a 13 x 18, registration was not perfect but quite good considering the difference between a real spring loaded gripper arm and a piano hinge that was just forced shut by the gripper head.

We always called them ink chocks. They were used when only a small portion of the fountain was being used and didn’t require filling the whole fountain with ink. Kind of an ink ‘dam’. It was also necessary to spread a small amount of ink on the unused portion of the steel fountain roller to prevent it from being scored by the blade.