Putting It All On The Table

In almost every way I was very fortunate when I got my Kelton press. Two bed support rollers were broken one of the handles on the starwheel was missing. I was able to have new rollers machined and the handle replaced. The weight that returns the table to the front position was also missing and a lot of cleaning was required. But in terms of having an operating press, these were small issues and otherwise it seemed complete. It even had the felt blanket operating system attached, something that was not attached to every press to begin with and that is usually missing in any case. It wasn't until I saw a video on Youtube and then later a museum photo that I learned that there had originally been a side table.

While not at all an essential part I did think that such a table would be useful to me because of the limitations on space in my living room shop. There is little room for a work table and I already use my letterpress imposing table for the plate heater and ink slab. Besides, another part of me thought it would be great to have the table and make the press complete. Yeah, right; good luck finding one!

Well, I did find one. A couple months ago I was reading a blog post by a fine arts student who was restoring an identical Kelton press. He did a beautiful job by the way and his press works great. In one of the photos I happened to notice a large, black, rectangular object on the floor in the background. I looked closer, zoomed in, and was pretty certain it was one of the tables. I wrote him and he confirmed that it was. I asked him if he was going to use it and if not would he care to sell it. To make a long story short, it came UPS a week and a half ago and I couldn't be happier or more grateful to him.



As I had seen from the Youtube and museum photo, the table was supported on one side by flat iron bar which was missing. I was able to fabricate a replacement with little trouble and it is visible in the attached photos. Otherwise it is attached by two machine screws to the side of the press. At about 70 pounds it is quite heavy.

I don't yet know if the manufacturer had intended specific uses for the different sections on the table though two are fairly obvious: The lowered tray on the left front is for caulk, the front of the compartment partially cut out for clearance of the hand as it is brushed over the top of the caulk. The flat section on the right front seems to be for use as a jigger while wiping the plate. I don't know exactly what the intention was for the two upper sections but possibly for tarlatan, pieces of blotting or other paper, etc. They may not have any specific purpose, just handy areas for whatever the press operator wanted based on his own working methods. The photo below shows things as they might be in use and as I will likely use them, though one of the rear upper sections will be used for blotting paper to lay over and under prints when pulling prints.



I'll be trying this setup soon as I print an edition for an upcoming print exchange.

Look Ma! No Hands!

When I wrote previously about describing the restoration of my Kelton copperplate press I mentioned that it was often known as a banknote press. The reason for this is easy to understand: it is specially designed for production printing and was used extensively by banknote and stock certificate manufacturers such as the American Bank Note Company.

U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing

The main production feature is the ability of the press bed to return rapidly to its starting position at the front of the press. To do this a D or half-cylinder is provided on top and the bed is set at a forward slant. The action is further helped by a weight attached to the rear of the bed through a pulley arrangement that pulls the bed back to its starting position. The press is also equipped with an adjustable pneumatic piston and rubber bumper that allow the bed to be gently stopped once the return motion is complete. The pneumatic piston consists of a leather cup washer in a sleeve, very much like the fuel pump on a Coleman stove though much larger.

There is an adjustable pawl on the right side of the upper D cylinder that engages with a corresponding adjustable pawl on the side of the bed. The pawls are adjusted so that when the star wheel is turned, thereby turning the upper cylinder, the bed is moved to the rear as the round part of the cylinder starts to come into contact with it. The pusher blanket is attached around the round part of the cylinder and with the plate on the bed and the other blankets positioned to their ends are caught between the cylinder and the bed as the wheel is turned, the whole is squeezed through the press as with any other intaglio press.

As soon as the D cylinder is turned round far enough that the plate has passed through and the round half of the cylinder leaves contact with the bed, the bed is free to roll back to its original position. In other words, the pressure of the round half of the cylinder pressing on the bed pushes the bed with the plate and blankets through the two rollers. With the flat half of the cylinder facing down, there is a gap and no pressure so the weighted bed returns back towards the printer. Ouila!

Ah, but there’s more!

Sometimes as a manufacturer’s option and sometimes as a factory-made attachment, a device for making the action of the blankets automatic would be attached to the press. This allowed the plate and paper to be laid on the bed, the wheel turned, the press run through its cycle with the bed returning automatically as described. The blankets would completely out of the way, would feed through the press and return with the bed and be completely out of the way again. The printer merely needed to stand on one side of the press, lay the plate and paper on the bed, pull the press through one cycle, and remove the paper and plate. Eat your heart out, Henry Ford.

This type of blanket return pre-dated these kinds of late 19^th century presses and examples from the first half of that century are known. There were different kinds, most having no D cylinder and requiring the bed be returned to the front by pulling the proof back through the press.

Perkins-Bacon Press

The basic method of operation can be discerned from my description and the photos I’ve posted here of my setup. In order to save on blankets I made a blanket extension piece from cotton duct that attaches to the rear of the bed and to the blankets. The woven pusher felt on my cylinder is a very old piece I scavenged until I could get a new one and I’ve subsequently done that. I made the wooden bar at the front and bought a round leather belt as the pulley was for that kind. The weight was a hunk of brass I had laying around that seems the correct weight and that I tapped for an eyebolt.

My Kelton Press

Rear Of Bed

Hand-Sewn Connection Of Felt And Cotton Duck

Attachment At Rear Of Bed. Piece Of Old Yardstick In Sewn Sleeve To Stiffen

Underside of Blankets And Front Clamp With Round Leather Belt

Side View Of Front Blanket Clamp

The system works perfectly and though I do not print on a production line or anything approaching it, I find it to be extremely convenient not to have to manipulate the blankets constantly or worry about them pinching under the rollers, etc. I was fortunate to get the bracket, etc. with the press but it could easily be made.

Cleaned And Pressed

I finished the restoration of the etching press last weekend but couldn’t get my camera, the Sony dinosaur with 3 ½” floppy disks, to work until today. I’ve actually been doing some letterpress printing in between but more on that later. I’ve got a few Before And After photos below as well as some detail shots. The Before is on the left and the After on the right. The quality as usual is poor and in some cases doesn’t do the cleanup job justice. For example, the face of the large cylinder on the bottom was completely covered with paint, which it should not be for use. It is now completely clean. The same is true for the bed and the cylinder, in addition to which they were both covered with rust under the paint. They are now down to bare metal again. In fact, all of the bare metal and bronze bearings that you see were once covered with paint, dirt, and grease.

Speaking of grease, I found on this press what one often finds on old machinery: grease in the oil bearings. If any of you have old machinery that requires regular lubrication remember that the engineers who design machinery design bearings for a certain type of lubrication and that you can’t just decide on your own to change it without consequences. Bearings designed for oil have channels and reservoirs and oil holes and are sized to work with oil. Bearings designed for grease are specially designed to do so and have appropriate grease caps attached, etc. Some people put grease in bearings designed for oil thinking that the grease will last a long time and they won’t have to oil it. This is completely wrong, especially the idea that greased bearings require no attention. Except for the first day or so, the grease will not keep the bearing surfaces coated with lubricant and the bearings will wear. That was the case with this press. Remember that bearings designed for grease will have cups with screw caps or grease nipples like the universal joint bearings on your car. The cup type will have grease in them and periodically the caps must be screwed down a bit pushing more grease into the bearings. In the case of nipples, a grease gun is used to pump more grease into the bearing. Bearings design for oil will either have open holes or caps with hinged lids. More rarely, there are oil cups with glass reservoirs that can provide a constant drip of oil and there are a few other types of automatic oilers. But the average printer will not likely encounter these. The thing to remember is to identify whether or not the bearing should get grease or oil and then use the correct lubricant; don’t substitute one for the other. If someone else has done so clean out the bearing completely and then use the right lubricant.

NOTE: In the above After photo of the press, that brown thing hanging down that almost looks like an extension of the cylinder blanket is actually the window curtain that just happens to be lined up with and the same shade as the blanket.

Two of the bed’s guide/support rollers were broken and have been replaced with new, machined copies. Most of these rollers were rusted or otherwise frozen but everything was disassembled and cleaned and now turns smoothly. Etching presses use felt blankets, usually three long ones of different thicknesses on top of one another. They perform several functions including soaking up sizing from the wet paper, pressing the paper into the incised lines of the plate, and helping the cylinder push the bed and plate through the two rollers. This particular kind of press has a D-shaped (half) cylinder and the top blanket is attached directly to it as the photo above shows. The other two felt blankets are held in place at the rear of the bed by the bars and thumbscrews shown in another photo below and pass under the cylinder. I removed those two for the photos. The blanket on the cylinder gets a lot of wear from pushing the other felts through the rollers and is therefore usually woven felt in contrast to the pressed felt from which the others are made. I was fortunate to have a piece of used woven felt that was once the cylinder blanket of an old galley proof press. It was filthy and is still stained as the photo shows. But I cleaned it by hand with Woolite and it is now clean and perfectly serviceable, if dark in color.

The above photo shows the air piston that helps slow the bed down on its automatic return to the forward position. I described in a previous post how that aspect of the press works. I had to make a new leather cup washer as the old one was almost completely destroyed. It was surprisingly easy to do and is basically the same kind of mechanism found on old hand-operated water pumps. There is also a rubber bumper directly above where the piston goes into its tube. The rear of the tube has an adjustable cap with a hole so that the amount of air exhausting out and thus the speed of the bed’s return can be controlled. Pretty clever, eh?

In the above photo if you look carefully towards the bottom center you can see the counterweight that pulls the bed back to the forward position. It is suspended from a leather belt that runs over a pulley on the rear support roller shaft. You can see the brown belt in the photo of the air piston. I made the counterweight from a large slug/cylinder of brass I had laying around. It’s about 3” in diameter and 8” long and weights about 25 pounds. I wrapped it in leather with a large wooden dowel so I could easily attach a screw hook for a D-ring on the leather belt.

In one of my previous posts on this press I described the mechanism by which the felts are automatically held up and out of the way. I did hook things up so it would work but the felts I have, scraps I had laying around, are not quite long enough for this to work too well, though it did work. When I’m able to replace the felts I’ll hook it up properly.

A few other things I did: I made a new arm for the wheel. One had gone missing sometime in the distant pass and a wooden replacement had been fabricated for use while it was a display piece. Fortunately I had a length of 1-inch bar stock and the correct screw-cutting die on hand so after some grunting and groaning and plenty of smelly cutting fluid the job was done. Cutting a 1-inch diameter thread by hand is not that easy. I also made wooden runners for it. I also decided to place pieces of leather between the upper cylinder’s bearings and the iron pressure pads. I’ve seen this and read about it in a number of places and it seemed a good idea. Supposedly it provides a slight amount of give and avoids undue strain on the press. Maybe. But it certainly doesn’t hurt.

I’m very happy with the press and am making some more test prints. I can’t wait to incorporate what I can do with it with my letterpress work. And I’ve got so much printing to do now, both letterpress and intaglio, that I will be quite busy. No more restorations for a while!

Look Out, Here Comes The Spider Man!

This is actually a re-post from my Front Room Press blog but it does start this new blog off fairly well. I'll attempt to avoid future regurgitations.

If Peter Parker had wanted to be a print maker of a more ancient variety, he may very well have chosen intaglio as his medium. Had he done so he would have needed a copper plate press, sometimes called a spider-press because of its large spoked handwheel. I don’t spin webs of any size or catch thieves just like flies but I am in the process of restoring a vintage copper plate intaglio press. Eat your heart out, Spidey.

This press was built by the M. M. Kelton Company of Brooklyn, NY sometime from the 1850’s through the early 20th century. I haven’t been able to pin it down closer than that and have found little direct information on these presses. However, by doing a lot of internet research, piecing together tidbits of information including that gleaned form vintage photos and etchings, and disassembly and studying the press as part of its restoration, I’ve learned quite a bit. For one thing, this style of cast iron mass-produced press was used extensively by bank note companies as well as the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing throughout the latter half of the 19th century. One of the largest users in my own area was the American Bank Note Company which had a printing house in Brooklyn, NY in addition to it’s headquarters in Manhattan. Brooklyn is of course where my press was made. Below is a photo of the ABNC’s now closed Brooklyn plant as it looks today.



Another photo shows these presses in operation and there are dozens, maybe hundreds of them churning out paper money, certificates, stamps, and all manner of financial documents. These presses were not designed for artists but for production. The top cylinder was in fact only a half-cylinder, its cross section appearing as a D-shape. The bed had a weight attached to the back that in conjunction with a pulley kept the bed in the forward position. When turning the handwheel an adjustable cam on the right side of the cylinder engaged with an adjustable mating cam on the bed which started the bed through the two (upper and lower) rollers automatically. Intaglio presses use three felt blankets laid over the paper and plate in order to cushion the pressure and press the paper into the incised plate to pick up the ink. On this press, the top blanket is attached to the top cylinder and a bar at the rear of the bed holds the other two blankets that extend along the bed under the upper cylinder.



Additionally, there is an iron frame above the press with a cross bar on which is a pulley. The blankets attached at the rear of the bed are held together at the front end where a rope is attached that goes over this pulley and on the end of which is a weight. When the press is at rest the bed is in its forward (start) position and the front end of the blankets are held up in the air out if the way so the plate and paper can be laid on the bed. Then the handwheel is turned, the bed is engaged and goes between the rollers making the print at which point it is automatically released merely by continuing to turn the handwheel. The bed automatically returns to its forward position and the blankets are automatically drawn up out of the way so the proof can be removed. Anyone who has operated an intaglio press will recognize the time saved with this arrangement. While not necessary for artist’s proofs, it’s a definite advantage for meeting production deadlines.



The press is not large but it is heavy. This is partly because the upper cylinder is solid, and even though the lower cylinder is a hollow casting it is very large and has thick walls as you would expect on an intaglio press because of the pressure exerted during printing. Modern presses have rollers about the same size top and bottom but it was common in the 19th century for the bottom roller to be much larger than the top as is the case here. Altogether the press weighs between 300 and 400 pounds, though that’s just an estimate. In practical terms it will print a plate up to 8” x 10”. The presses most recent use was as a display item in a print shop in Long Island City, i.e. Queens. It had been coated in black paint right over any dirt and rust so it would be nice and shiny. It needs to be completly cleaned and adjusted, the paint taken off where it shouldn't be, and some minor repairs made but otherwise nothing major. I suspect it came from the ABNC in Brooklyn when they closed that plant which is not too far away from its display post.



I have several letterpress printing projects that are a priority at the moment but I’ve begun the restoration process on this press and hope to be able to experiment within a month or so. I’ve never done intaglio before so it will be interesting. Besides limited edition proofs, I want to use it to produce artwork for my letterpress journal and also for artistamps that I can perforate on my Rosback perforator. I’ve seen some examples of work that is a combination of intaglio and letterpress so there are a lot of options, even if I don’t have radioactive blood.