Flurry (a new online journal about letterpress printers) needs you. In particular, Flurry needs your press moving stories. And not just that time when you hired riggers and everything went really smoothly. Post a comment telling us (in 50 words or less) what crazy things your love for letterpress has caused you to do with really heavy machinery (or, if you’re shy, email us (liftgate@boxcarpress.com). How far were you willing to go for your cast iron beauty? Madness, adrenaline, photos, reenactments, and adventure are all encouraged. The best story will win the right of first refusal for Harold Kyle’s *free* 2-ton Miehle Vertical press. This press has brand new rollers, as well as typical rust and dirt issues as you’d expect with any mid-century press. It’s guaranteed to provide you with an exciting press moving story all over again! You’ll also receive fame and a Boxcar letterpress t-shirt featuring your choice of press (Vandercook; Windmill; C&P; or Sigwalt). And we’ll feature the best stories in an upcoming article on Flurry. Post or email your best in 50 words or less by August 20.
My story is about moving type, not a press, and I hope it will introduce the phrase “to be Tasossed†or “I/we got Tasossed†into the printing and mainstream lexicon. You can see & read the story in photos here: http://tinyurl.com/5kkrlt
– how can anyone tell a good story in 50 words or less?
We drove from south Florida to Indiana for our vintage 1920 10 x 15 floormodel C&P. Wow, did it look great in the photos!… Bleary eyed and worn from the 22hr straight through drive in our borrowed Ford 350 (thanks John) we arrived just in time for the dust to clear. Needless to say the pictured press we saw was not the one that was unearthed before us… no this press, was far more vintage, far more “rare” and “special”.
My husband insisted that we didn’t need the added expense of a trailer and that we could just drop it in the back of the truck… yea right… well we did and it actually wasn’t so bad if you discount the new shocks for John and the 22hour nightmare ahead of us imagining a sudden stop that would hurl all 2,000 lbs of this “rare” iron beauty into our lap. Fortunately we made it back each in one whole piece, which is the best part, however, in all of our fatigue we neglected to simply plug in the press motor to see if it worked. It did not. We did get lucky though and just happened to have a friend who was borrowing a forklift the day we arrived home, go figure, that saved us the $200 we were able to put toward the $800 motor repair. All in all, “Dory” our press , our “special” beauty is the showpiece in our shop. We earned the $1,800 we invested in her on the first job we ran.
After five days, hundreds of dollars, a frozen key in the flywheel shaft, 7 trips to the hardware store, several calls to the experts, 4 trips from Yellow Springs to Cincinnati and back (totaling 12 hrs), a trip to the emergency room, 13 stitches, a spilled drawer of type, two Kentucky mountain boys on a boom truck, and some 1200 total miles driven by all involved, I was the proud owner of my first press, a 10×15 C & P. The C & P (acquired for $600 on ebay) was truly earned with blood sweat and tears, and I have an ugly looking badge on my leg to prove it.
I arrived in Dayton on a Tuesday by plane, with a duffel bag and a handful of printouts full of conflicting advice and diagrams, and very few tools (a screwdriver, a hammer, an adjustable wrench). I was picked up by my good friend who was living in Yellow Springs. On Thursday afternoon, the two of us drove down into Cincinnati and picked up a 15 ft Budget truck, which despite my best efforts, came without liftgate. I chose the 15 ft box truck over the smaller option due to it’s 7’3″ ceiling, leaving “ample” headroom for a boom carrying a 1600lb 5′ tall press to sneak into the back end of the truck.
I drove the truck to the location of the printshop in an area in South Cincinnati known as Delhi. The shop belonged to the late John F. Eyeman, who had acquired the press sometime in the seventies and had started a printing business called Variety Printing, but had developed alzheimers and had been locked away from his press for some time.(He also, the family learned at the funeral, a spy in WWII, and had later discovered a memoir of the event stashed away in a box in the attic). From what I could see from the type he had left tied up and the paper samples he had wrapped in a closet, he printed mostly items for small retail businesses: receipts, tickets, labels, event posters, coupons, etc. In one of his dingbat drawers (where he had some really nice retro images) I found a die that was probably used for cutting doorhangs. He worked from a limited palet of inks: black, red, yellow, and green.
Also in the room were four cases of type, three of which we could take, but the fourth, which was a narrow wooden chest in gorgeous condition and was staying with the family. There were approximately 7 large chases, (one of which still had type locked into it, some kind of ticket/form job for a senior center) two very small chases, a box of furniture, a wall glittering with tools (some of which I’ve never seen before), and several boxes of all the various accoutrements needed for setting type, a list I won’t go into here.
The door we had to move the press through was 29.5″ wide and it was absolutely necessary for us to remove the flywheel and the sidearms. My friend and I collaborated on “Plan A” and made our first trip to the hardware store. He videotaped each step as we removed each part, which we dropped into labeled ziplock bags. It was a very organized system and was moving along quite smoothly for the first half hour or so, until we hit the blasted key behind the pinion on the fly wheel. It was nearly three inches from the pinion and no
amount of tapping, prying or pulling would budge it. We made another trip to the hardware store, and newly armed we made countless attempts from several angles to remove the key. We worked at it for about four hours before we made a late night call to Katie Harper, who had seen
the press some months ago, with the hopes that she might know someone in the city who could come and help. She suggested Kelly Niece, who took presses apart for a living. I decided to save my phone call for Friday morning, which would be a more reasonable hour. We called it an evening and headed back to Yellow Springs.
In the morning, having had little sleep, we headed back to Cincinnati, armed with stories I had found in the letterpress archives about stuck keys and their eventual liberation. I made a phone call to Larry Raid, who had given some advice on the archives about my predicament and discussed some approaches I should take (using a cold chisel, the drilling method.) Shortly after that, while still enroute to Delhi, we heard from Kelly Niece, who was unavailable to help us until the following week, but had several pieces of thin wedge-shaped steel that he uses to force keys loose which he said I could borrow. We swung by a shop where he happened to be working and he showed us his working method: set the wedge between the head of the key and a piece of steel set against the pinion and tap the wedge forward until the key moves out.
Needless to say, none of the methods worked out. The wedge and steel piece kept tenting upward and popping loose, and the key balked at Larry’s method of waking the key (tapping it forward before encouraging it out with the cold chisel), At this point-three hours into day two- my friend had to leave to take care of his son and I wasn’t feeling
very confident with going forward and drilling into the key. I called Kelly and practically begged him to find a way out to help us (the truck was costing us hundreds a day). He
insisted that he was absolutely full until the following week, but he said he’d ask his brother Benny if he could come out, who called me back quickly and said he’d be there early Saturday morning to get the key out. I resigned to get my head out of the dungeon and start loading the truck with type drawers and obsolete motors.
It was shortly after that, in a stupor of exhaustion and impatience, that I chopped at a piece of rope with a brand new box cutter. The blade went straight through the rope and sailed through the meat of my left thigh, just above the knee.
I didn’t even feel it. I looked down at my pants, saw the tear, and thinking that maybe I had made a small slice in my leg, peered inside. Instead I found that the flesh of my thigh had parted like the red sea and I could see straight to the muscle. I dropped the box cutter, hobbled to the front porch of the house, and threw my arms against the screen door, where the grandaughter of the late pressman’s wife, Emily, peered out the with a slightly worried look on her face.
The paramedics were there in three minutes, a policeman in four. I was dizzy from panic and the heat and everything started to take on a white haze. The cop muttered that the cut in my leg looked like the equivalent of a gunshot wound.
While I was en route to the hospital via bumpy ambulance the cop and Emily went downstairs to the basement to find the box cutter, (not knowing I had cut myself in the truck,) and found evidence of my various attempts of loosing the key (“Plans B through Z”) and had deduced that I had thrashed about and destroyed the room in a panic. The cop again made a comparison to a scene of a murder and wondered aloud if he should go back to the car for some body chalk.
The short story from here: Despite the horror of seeing the wound, I never really felt any pain, and the doctor was so inconspicuous with the needles and with the stitches that even the procedure of restoring the crater in my leg to its previous arrangement was painless. Four stitches on the inside, nine on top, there was no serious damage, and I was released to the streets of Cincinnati round about 6 pm. The late pressman’s grandson picked me up, prescribed orange
juice and cookies for my ghostly pallor, and then swung me home to a sweet Marriot.
While on the gurney, thinking that the trip was seriously ruined and I would be unable to get around, let alone comfortably use my gas foot, I called my wife and told her she had better come up to help. She and my 19mo. old son and my mother-in-law showed up at the hotel at 4AM.
When I arrived at Steve’s house the next morning, getting around surprisingly well on my feet, I found Benny already at the press working out the key with the steel wedge. He was taking his sweet time with small taps, and compensating for the tenting of steel with an occasional downward tap. The key was free of the pinion in less than fifteen minutes. He filed down
the shaft and slowly pried the pinion away from the press. Not wanting to waste any more time, I let him finish the dismantling of the press, which basically involved pulling the fly wheel free, removing the throw arm and loosening some pins on the rod attached to the throw arm so
that we could slide it in far enough to have room to get past the door.
I am utterly amazed how such a mammoth press can move so easily on pipes. My wife, Benny, and injured I had it out of the room, through the basement, and into the garage in roughly fifteen minutes.
The coup-de-grace was the tow truck guy and his buddy, whom the tow truck guy referred to as his “sister.” The tow truck guy told us in his Kentucky way that he was confident that he could do the job, but admitted this confidence was purely derived from the lack of any liability should something go wrong. They were to move the press from the bottom of the driveway up to the street, and somehow ease it inside the truck.
They were not the guys who I had intended to move the press, but the original person that was going to do it on the Friday I sawed my leg off (and who had moved presses before with his boom) was unavailable on the weekends.
The tow truck guy and his “sister” had neglected to bring nylon straps as I had asked and moved a little too fast for someone who had read one too many stories about presses falling to their demise. We threaded the chain through the roundish hole in the frame and did a test lift to
make sure it wouldn’t pitch backwards. It was a long ten minutes getting the press into the truck, mostly spent my time yelling woah woah woah! and covering my eyes. Against our advice, the tow-truck driver’s sister walked behind the press which hung five feet from the ground pitched at a 45 angle towards him, as if his presence there would somehow stop the press should it decide to fly loose from the chain… (I was thinking, well, maybe he’ll break the fall).
Once in the street, we backed the budget truck up into the press in increments until the C & P was finally where we wanted it. The final scare was when he backed his boom so far it started dragging up against the inking plate–but no harm was done. I was on the road within the hour.
We went with a rollback truck for the C & P’s removal from the truck: we towed it onto the bed, strapped it down, lowered the bed at a forty-five degree angle, and slowly eased it into storage
It was no easy feat getting the press into my possession, but its almost like a rite of passage. Like taming a stallion… earning a healthy respect for your machine. It was also a great way to pull the community together…
there’s no way I could have done any of this with out my friends (both old and newly acquired) and family. I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world.
After five days, hundreds of dollars, a frozen key in the flywheel shaft, 7 trips to the hardware store, several calls to the experts, 4 trips from Yellow Springs to Cincinnati and back (totaling 12 hrs), a trip to the emergency room, 13 stitches, a spilled drawer of type, two Kentucky mountain boys on a boom truck, and some 1200 total miles driven by all involved, I was the proud owner of my first press, a 10×15 C & P. The C & P (acquired for $600 on ebay) was truly earned with blood sweat and tears, and I have an ugly looking badge on my leg to prove it.
We flew from Atlanta to Milwaukee, despite not knowing where ¾ ton of Vandercook was going to live. After Home Depot for tie-down straps, come-along and crowbar, we loaded the press into the rental truck. All was smooth until Tennessee where the truck caught fire at a gas station. We ruined one of Churchman’s blankets and emptied one of the station’s fire extinguishers subduing the blaze. (The rental company should be sued for renting a truck without an extinguisher) We were unable to continue until a flatbed truck loaded our truck onto itself and the cheerful east Tennessee driver drove us the next couple hours into Atlanta. After securing a temporary storage facility (the next day), we moved the press out of the burned out truck and into a self-storage locker.
When more permanent digs became available, we began the process again. This time with a better truck, equipped with a lift. Unfortunately, our lack of skill made up for the convenience of the lift. Trying to move the Vandercook from the lift-gate to the ground proved to be more difficult than we thought. The press was listing about 30 degrees, held only by tie-down straps and our good intentions when a lone stranger approached, walking. “Hey, you folks need any help?†he asked. “Not unless you have a fork-lift†was my smart-mouthed reply. “Sure, my brother and I run a fork-lift repair shop next-door†he said, just as my jaw hit the asphalt. Of course, he made short work of our horrible mis-calculation, and we owe him a debt of gratitude.
Three years ago, wife Kathy, photographer co-owner of our art gallery, and I began setting up letterpress shops in our village. Our pick-up crew has since moved
3 Washingtons
3 Kelseys
8 Vandercooks
2 Craftsman pilot clones
6 C&P jobbers
3 Vandercook lookalikes
1 Printer
some more than once.
Gordo’s Disoriented Press-Movers Uncooperated loads the last of the Amos Paul Kennedy presses at Akron, Alabama, in January 2008 under a tornado warning…
…in order to hurry to Gordo, Alabama, to unload in a completely separate tornado warning!!! The trip was totally successful. No casualties. Neither tornado reached the ground.
Chip and I pick up a standing book press from a Mr. N_____ in a dingy SE Mpls warehouse basement. $75, what a deal! We’re busy disassembling when Mr. N_____ leaves for lunch. Chip and I poke around. A bookbinding business down here? No, it appears to be a front for an underground gay sex club complete with stalls (with “lotion” dispensers), performing stage, bleachers built over the paper cutter table. No windows, all painted black. We hurry hurry hurry and leave with our standing press dangling out the back of my F-150. Thanks, Chip!
I answered an ad for a complete print shop for free.The problem was everything was in the basement.Their were two presse’s.one was a C&P the other a L.F. Grammes.Both were partially disassembled and hauled up with a stair climbing dolly.Their was a challenge paper shear and full type cabinet.I also got a workbench,marble top setting table,furniture cabinet and inks etc.Thank’s Tim
The invitation to share a press moving story was very appealing since my 19-year old daughter and I just survived the experience earlier this week. We were both struck with the “letterpress bug” while on vacation. Thanks to the classifieds at briar press, we located a C & P – 10 X 15 (OS) within an hour from our home. Since our new venture will be a father/daughter collaboration, I felt it natural that my daughter be “drafted” to assist with the move. I visited the press prior to the move and developed a strategy for the “big day”. I rented a tilt-bed trailer, two large heavy-equipment dollies, and a johnson bar (huge lever made of oak and steel with casters to act as a fulcrum). I also purchased a come-along and a floor jack for assistance. It took us two and a half hours to coax the press out of a garage and onto the trailer. Very few curse words were used during the process. The only harrowing moment came when the casters from the dolly had to climb up the lip of the trailer. The press decided that it was tired and needed to lay down on its side (not a good thing). Fortunately, I weight 235 lbs. and was able to jump on the come-along cable to keep the press from toppling. My daughter and I (and the nice woman selling the press) both held our breath and coerced the bohemoth onto the trailer. The next stop was at Home Depot, where we refit the press with wooden skids (8 ft. 6 X 6 on each side). We added straps and chain and began the 45 mile trip home. No incidents ensued, but we still had to get the press off the trailer and into our garage. Thanks to 3/4″ inch conduit, we rolled “Lucy” (name given to the press by my daughter) into our garage. By then, we were seven hours into our project. We were getting tired and cranky. Lucy was quiet and patient through the entire process. Lucy is waiting for a bath and restoration. I think we’ll start with soda blasting and go from there. We are both perfectionists (yes, it’s hereditary) and only “pristine” will do. Eventually, Lucy will live in our basement. She will only fit through the door with some disassembly. That should facilitate her move down a grass imbankment, through the back yard and into our shop space.
We took some video of the move. We will post it on briar press in the future. We also want to post our progress on the restoration.
My daughter and I are estatic about the future of the Bluegill Press (her idea as well). She is an art major and the creative muscle behing our hobby business. Please check out our website (www.bluegillpress.com) in the future. We have no product, no working press, and no website content, but our plan “looks really good on paper” (pun intended).
A TALE FROM A PADDED CELL
W/ DeSiRE 2 iM PRESS —
NO ADVICE Would I take,
SET 2 RaMP DoWN
a HALF INCH FRM BReaK.
BEFORE POP COULD ReTuRN
FRoM HIS Dash FOR RELIEF,
JUST 1 MORE TINY NUDGE
BEGAN MY SHOCK & DISBELIEF.
NoBoDY TOLD ME
To TIE the gate CLOSeD
PooR OL’ C & P —
BaCKWARD IT NOSED.
A SLOW MOTION ROLL SOUTH.
A LOP-SIDED GAINER,
AN ALMOST GRACEFUL DIP DoWN,
I CouLDN’T RESTRAIN’ER.
A SPECK OF TIME N THE AIR —
AS MY DAYDREAM XPLODED,
IT’S ON THE GRouND NOW —
THAT GOT ’ER UNLOADED!
See ya.
Butch House. 8/ 8/ 08. Straight-Jacket Press Movers, Ink.
Have Thorazene — Will Travel.
Rode too hard . . . and put up wet.
Ashes to ashes and rust to rust. Requiescat In Pace.
Pallbearers: Glenn House, Sr., Sarah Bryant (Big Jump Press), Patrick Masterson (University of Alabama Book Arts student), Paul Moxon (Fameorshame Press), and a black dog named Blue. The Rough Rider is Butch House.
I think Glenn should win just for the photo of someone riding a Vandercook. Priceless!
I can’t keep it to 50 words, but you can read about my last press moving adventure here: http://adventuresinletterpress.blogspot.com/2007/08/c-has-arrived.html
One 1,200 lb press + 4 moving men + 1 narrow flight of stairs = Good times!
The sad thing is that it’s going to be an even bigger pain to get the press out again if we move.
Thanks for the opportunity to see evidence that my father, Glenn, and my brother, Butch, are still alive. After reading great stories from all, I think I’d rather move everything I own from Gordo to Kentucky than to move a press. Vickie House
Song of the Vulgar Pressmen
Yo-yo’s, heave ho! Yo-yo’s, heave ho!
Once more, once again, still once more
Now we pull the stout windmill,
Now we pull hard: one, two, three.
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Ay-da, da, ay-da!
Now we pull the stout windmill
Yo-yo’s, heave ho!
My dubious honor is to follow
GlennSr/GlennJr for 20 years,
camera and spare 2×4 blocks at ready.
Amos Paul Kennedy Jr moved last January,
House Family “print museum†moved in July.
Now, a really big press shows up from Italy
in a crate that’s 2†bigger than the door.Â
OK, here’s one in the spirit of Kathy’s situation above. I’m moving a Windmill on a tilt-bed to a remote West Virginia town for one of Boxcar’s customers. Doesn’t fit through the door. I start disassembling, but those stubborn Heidelberg taper pins break my pin punches and empty my torch. It doesn’t help when the local handyman Burgerman Large shows up. Yes this is his name–the one his parents gave him. Burgerman Large. Big burly Harley Guy. I’m a scrawny clean-shaven guy who uses tools. I don’t think he cares for me. We can’t agree about anything, and I really wish he would just get on his bike and ride out of town, but we somehow manage together to get the press pried over to the doorway. Three steps up, one at a time on blocks. Ugh. Still doesn’t fit. Pushing, pushing, won’t budge. Now we’re stuck in the doorway with the press teetering backwards. I think, “I didn’t drive six hours to get a press stuck in a doorway in a town that doesn’t have a forklift–or did I?” All of a sudden, Burgerman Large lets out a huge indescribable primal “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrahhhhhhhhhhhhhh” and LIFTS the Heidelberg’s main casting up, tilts it forward, and with the weight of the press going down on the door frame….pops it into the room. I have never seen a man lift a Heidelberg before, nor ever since. Burgerman Large did this (and I have witnesses). Lots of respect earned for Burgerman’s way of doing things.
In 1979, I was offered to haul a graceful mound of cast iron, an 8†x 10†C/P mounted on a hand-tooled base, resembling an old fashioned barber’s chair. It had come from Bronx Psychiatric Hospital, a tool they had used to try and break the patients free from themselves. Versed in a world of woodcuts and etchings, I took the offer sight unseen. Although I had no experience with letterpress, in a time when the craft was strictly commercial and male-dominated, I waltzed into a love affair that has never dwindled. Cradled by hydraulic lifts, stressed-out freight elevators and 2 burly men, my first letterpress came to RAM STUDIO in the heart of Manhattan’s printing district in Chelsea.
The best invitation in Gordo is the phone call from a House or a Fetters saying, “Hey, you wanna go with us to move a couple of presses and some type cases?’
Since I’m Harold’s ‘witness’ for the Burgerman Large story I rode shotgun along for above (post 16, and yes, it’s all true.) I have to select another tale from my last fifteen years of press moving. Do I tell about emptying out Memphis Engraving of its letterpress equipment, finding a closet full of Vandercooks stacked on top of one another? Dog-bone nipping presses littering the floor at our feet? Emptying out said closet while my bosses tended to the really big Vandercook in the other room? That press ended up in Peter Kruty’s Brooklyn shop. I moved that press twice by myself, just me and a chain fall, some pipes and two sheets of plywood. I think my boss Larry pushed it with his Chevy Nova some.
Anyway, . . . there was the time me, Larry, Sam Tickle & David Alford worked an ungodly thirty-six hours straight moving letterpress equipment out of the Bryce State Mental Hospital. At one point there were two men in sweatsuits and weightbelts (patients, maybe?) who helped us move a 325G to an elevator where the press had to stand upright for the trip down. We drove back to Memphis that same night and hauled it up one full flight of stairs to a space that was the formerly karate studio of one King of Rock n’ Roll. That’s right, Elvis Presley. (Miss Cilla had her affair with her karate instructor. OUCH!) Again, I did the lackey’s fair share of pulling the chain fall up, up, up. After that we all entered the Press Movers Anonymous program.
Someone needs to get in touch with PMA’s founder Ke Francis. He has the zulu lunkbuster of press moving tales to tell.
There was the time Mike Bixler & I nearly froze to death in Canada moving a press. That wasn’t so harrowing a move as it was a drive. We just got to talking so much that we lost track of the fuel gauge and dog gone it, people in Canada just don’t stop to see if someone is having a bad press moving experience. To add insult to injury we were stopped at the border both ways. For what? I don’t know, but Mike wasn’t happy about it.
I hear a tale of one Mike Kaylor who moved something like 40 presses in 4 days. Most if not all big platen presses. And this is before he had his own trailer to haul stuff. And Kaylor has his “Day of the Treadles” find story to write in himself.
There was the Yale sale I went to with Harold, but that was just sort of ugly. All the great stuff had already been picked through. The Scarsdale move with Harold where we met the widow of the world’s only letterpress printer/rock polisher. Did we want any rocks to take back with us? Mrs. would sell em to us cheap.
Moving my own equipment these many years hasn’t been nearly as much fun as when I’m helping others, be it Larry Cooper or Mike Bixler or Mike Kaylor or Harold J. or Brad Benedict, whoelse. . . . My personal press moves are often all too anxiety-ridden to repeat. Everyone’s got great stories; will there ever be enough time to share them all?
Look ma–no forklift!
The adventure began when I answered an ad on Briarpress for a functioning Kluge in Tucson. Made the two hour trip, owner was amazingly nice, and offered to give us the 2,000 lb+ press if we could figure out how to move it. Immediately the decision was made that we had to have the press – moving couldn’t be that hard/expensive/dangerous, right? We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, so we hired a company to do this for us, figuring this would be a safer bet. This was not our brightest decision. I would not suggest the sans-forklift approach to anyone. I think a flatbed truck and a forklift would have been much safer/more efficient in this situation.
Terry Chouinard (19): The press on the trailer (no. 11) is one of those from Bryce Hospital (Alabama Insane Hospital). Alford put it in a lean-to in the woods that rotted down around it. Were you fortunate enough to get to move the Linotype from the second-floor printshop? I helped David McClure move it up the freight elevator a long time ago. There were literally only fractions of inches to spare between ceiling, walls, and door of the elevator. The door had to be closed and latched from the inside before it would move. McClure was slim and agile enough to crawl into the machine and reach back to close the door. Serioully overloaded, that elevator groaned to high-Heaven on its excruciatingly slow trip up. McClure was trembling and as white as a ghost when I pulled him out of the machine. Talk about a crazy move!
Last year we moved our first press a C&P 8×12 newstyle with a ford tractor (with a bucket on the front and a backhoe on the back). We used a large moving strap and chains hooked on to the lip of the bucket. After experimenting to get the balance just right, we then lifted the bucket to lift the press (and the press was the maximum the tractor could lift and we had to periodically set the press down as the hydraulics complained!) I then walked beside it stabilizing the swinging press while my dad very slowly drove it up a long driveway and down a state highway and up our driveway, entire trip was probably about 1/2 mile and took around an hour. Quite a sight to see a c&p hanging from a tractor bucket, we got some crazy looks from the traffic and the neighbors! Too bad I was so into the move and getting the press home safe I didn’t take any pictures of the actual move but I will never forget it! Turns out that it works great for challenge paper cutters too!
Since then we have moved other press with forklifts, rods, pipes, etc but none of those quite as interesting as the first move with the Ford tractor!
I first began my obsession with letterpress as a 10 year old boy in Detroit. My grandfather was a trained printer, and had a 8×12 C&P Oldstyle in his basement that he in turn trained me to run. After he passed, the press sat idle for 15 years. When my new wife & I went shopping for our first house, a pre-condition to purchase that I set was a ground level basement suitable for moving in the C&P. Our choice of a home depended on satisfying my love of iron.
When my grandmother moved out of her home in 1999, it came time to remove the C&P and related treasures from the basement. The basement in Warren, Michigan required bringing the press up a staircase that had a 90 degree bend in it. I decided to hire movers to help. Not knowing any better, I told them that the press weighed 250-300 pounds. On the day of the move, the arrived with three guys and no equipment.
After seeing the press again for the first time in 5 years, I realized that 300 lbs was a bit light. I decided to lighten the load by removing the flywheel, ink disk and the feed table. The three guys then attempted to hand carry the now 900 lb beast up the steps. To their credit, they made it up two steps.
After bringing the press back down, they asked if I could separate the bed from the base. I obligingly hammered out the shaft holding them together with a brass bar and removed the arms. This enabled the three hapless fellows to struggle each piece up the stairs to the rental truck. Upon completing their task, they said it was going to be an ibuprofen kind of evening for them.
The rest of the move to Marietta, Georgia was uneventful. The 103 year old press has been run many times and has produced some nice work. It is now joined by three other presses with a fourth on the way in a few days. And yes, family and friends do think I’ve lost my marbles.
In over forty years with letterpress printing, I have many tales of presses moved by various inventive means, but one stands out. I found two Vandercook Universal III presses for sale in Virginia. They also had some Ludlow equipment which I didn’t need. I called up a printing buddy and asked if he was ready for a road trip to pick up the stuff if he was interested in the ludlows. He answered in the affirmative and we made the plans.
I got to his house at the appointed time. We had a great dinner and I was ready to settle down for the evening, but he said we had a little job to do first. The trailer we were going to use at 6AM the next morning was at a local sawmill awaiting new decking. We got to the sawmill and the logs were not even cut, so we assisted the owner in cutting planks of oak from the logs, then attached them to the trailer frame.
The journey from Iowa to Virginia went well. We switched off driving so we could get there in one fell swoop. We managed to load up the two Vandercooks, two Ludlows, Two cabinets of Ludlow mats, two steel galley cabinets with the full complement of galleys, etc. I asked my partner in crime if he didn’t think all this was too heavy a load for the trailer, but he answered in the negative, so we took off on the Virginia Highways.
About 20 miles down the road we blew out a tire on the pickup truck. Another 50 miles saw one trailer tire blow. It was a dual, so we thought we might creep up to the next exit to get off the Interstate. We advanced about 40 feet and the other tire on same side gave way dramatically. We unhooked the trailer and drove to the next exit where we found a junkyard/tire dealer who had a stack of Double-eagles he had taken in exchange for some other stuff. They had good tread, so we had him mount them along with two others on rims he had. He wandered what we were hauling, we told him printing equipment, and he pointed to a 12×18 C&P in the rear of his yard. We informed him that we may stop back in another life, and went back to our tilted trailer. My buddy had a railroad jack with him, so we were able to jack up the loaded trailer and replace the faulty tires. On our way again, we managed another 150 miles before the next blowout (other side). Got that one changed and decided to stay overnight to rest our nerves and give the tires, and ourselves, a chance to cool down.
The trip gave me a healthy respect for good rubber & the scenery in the Cumberland Gap. The Vandercooks have been cranking away daily for the past 12 years or so, so I guess the trip was worthwhile.
The old black 12 x 18 (or thereabouts) Furnivall platen lived in a tin shed located on the side of a very steep hill. Gently Phil and I prised it up and onto a pallet trolley and eased it out of the door to the driveway and, hopefully, onto the tilt-tray trailer hooked up behind the family station wagon parked at right angles to the door. Out we went and an over enthusiast twist on the trolley handle saw the press wobble, tilt and tip to one side – fortunately coming to rest at well over 45 degrees up against the trailer.
What to do? The elderly chap selling the press couldn’t help and there was no way we two middle-aged men could straighten up this 3/4 ton monster – besides we were laughing too much. Phone-a-friend was the answer and Tom turned up complete with block and tackle. Lassoing a passing large ecualyptus tree we hauled the press upright and the three of us managed to inch it down the slope onto the trailer without sending the whole lot; car, trailer and press; cascading down the hill
The end result – much laughter, a few sore muscles, no damage to the press and a vow to always remember to take a camera when moving heavy metal !
Three years of searching, searching and searching and I finally found the SP-15 of my dreams. It was located only about 10 miles from our studio. I thought great, I’ll stop by and if all is good, then I’ll figure out how to get it out and in here. I answered a Briar Press add that was marked as “sold” but tried anyway. Guy named Ron answered and in the next week, I was standing in front of the press. A Vandercook. An Sp-15. What I dreamed of for 3 years. The press was in excellent condition. So now I own a press and have no press mover to bring it to me. Ron mentions he has a friend who has a flat bed tow truck. “Just slide it on the truck, strap it in and it’s at your place in 10 minutes”, he says without taking a breath. Few days later John calls. Says he can move the press from Ron’s place, bring it to the studio and move it in. His price was $300. I thought, GREAT!
The press arrives at the studio and the dilemma was how to get the press from the flat bed truck to where it needed to be, about 200 feet away from the driveway. The fact that they had to move the press through a grass walkway with 100 year old tree roots was beginning to make the guys sweat.
John and his much younger brother (John being no more than 25) decided they were going to lift the 700lb SP-15 on to the grass from the truck and then use tree branch firewood to roll the press to the shop. As they were moving the press on the makeshift wheels, I was standing there, part in awe and part in insanity wondering how I let two guys who’ve never moved a press ever to bring my precious piece of metal home. Amazing, they completed the task and I got to wipe the sweat off my forehead. The whole process which seemed like a month only took but 45 minutes.
I was in possession of my press only for 3 months and had the opportunity to purchase another SP-15, this one in Massachusetts.
I call my young inexperienced press movers and they agree again to help me move the press, transport it from North Adams, MA to northern New Jersey. Six hours of driving to and six hours fro. Day before the scheduled move, John calls and lets me know he cannot drive the flatbed for 6 hours straight so will ask his friend to borrow his dirt bike trailer and hitch it to his pick up truck.
I arrive in North Adams first, with our little daughter, 10 months at most and Dad in tow for driving company. We wait for John, his brother and the trailer to arrive.
12:00pm
1:00pm
2:00pm
No show.
We’re all getting frustrated. I walk down my seller’s driveway and out of the corner turn and fire engine red pick up truck with it’s swaying open trailer tailing behind. Guess John didn’t realize how tight that last turn was. It was like seeing a dog running at full speed, not seeing the curve in the road and falling off the side of the mountain… almost. John and company drives past the house and 20 minutes later arrives at the house where we’re all waiting.
After all the hand shaking and greetings it was time to get to business. The press gets rolled out of seller’s shop and on to the asphalt.
The guys couldn’t get the press on to the trailer as they needed a ramp about a foot and a half high that no one had or could get their hands on. Younger brother of John has a great idea – let’s just lift the press from one side and slide the press on to the trailer.
I’m thinking to myself. “do they know how much the press weighs?” And then I remember months back, they did the same thing.
John’s brother gets on the trailer and proceeds to lift the shelf to lift the press. At this point, my dad and press seller were in awe. I ran and got my camera that could shoot video. John’s brother lifts the paper shelf about 2 feet high and John pushes the press about 1/3 of the way in. His strength starts to buckle and for a split moment, the SP-15 was teetering like a see-saw on the trailer. In one swift push, John gets the press on the trailer and we ALL breathed a sigh of relief.
Six hour drive back with drizzle, I was surprised the press arrived back here in one piece.
I sure did learn my lesson of hiring a proper press mover in the future.
Slow-down and strategy-plotting amongst the crew. Reliance Hand Presses don’t
like to be moved.
A paper company in NYC donated a Chandler and Price to our non-profit Community Printshop here in Providence, Rhode Island. In the middle of the winter the press was put on a pallet in NYC and shipped to Boston. From Boston it was then taken to a sub contractor in Providence. The sub contractor was scheduled to deliver the press on a Friday afternoon. The press never arrived and I didn’t receive a phone call. I got ahold of the company; the press had been dropped in the warehouse onto a skid of copy paper. They assured me that it wasn’t broken and couldn’t lift the press without all of the deliverymen who were out on runs and rescheduled the delivery. A week later the press arrived on a truck with one driver and wouldn’t fit down the alley. Our office staff of 10 pushed the press down the street and up the alley. With the press half stuck in the building, we unwrapped the black shrink-wrap to find the clear shrink wrap from the first shipper and all of the broken parts. After months of pursuing the shipping company they finally sent a check to cover the loss. The press is currently being stored in our future shop and we are hoping to fix it up or use it for parts. For the epic visual story check out our flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/as220/sets/72157603781442464/ or our website, http://www.as220.org/printshop