Middle Roller not Rolling
Just recently I noticed on my golding jobber that my middle roller doesn’t seem to continue to roll when going over my rails to the chase. My rails are taped to raise them up but it is not interfering with the other 2 rollers. It was rolling fine previously and I have taken the rollers off and put them back on.. I find it just odd it’s only the middle roller. What’s the deal, any advice?
I think it could be one of two things:
- there is too much friction between the trucks and roller hooks. maybe grit or lack of lubricant in the hooks.
- the roller hooks are not pulling the roller against the bed rails with enough force (maybe due to gunk in the springs or overly stretched springs. )
Roller bearers in the forme could give enough extra contact to get them to roll over the type properly.
—Ken.
When you took the rollers off did you examine the bearings and the trucks? Bearings may just need some oil or can sometimes loose the ball bearings inside them and so stop functioning. Also the roller core pin can wear out the plastic truck so that the roller core just spins inside the truck and so doesn’t carry the motion of the truck to the roller.
When the roller rolls off the ink plate and onto the rails and stops turning, is the truck turning or did it stop also? Might need to mark a spot on the truck to see that.
So it rolls fine over my inkling plate it is literally when it hits the rails where the rails curve to go down to the plate it stops both the trucks and the roller. I’ll examine the trucks a bit more to see if they need oil or are missing the bearing…if I need trucks where can I get new ones?
Thanks for the help!
Switch rollers first with trucks to verify if it is a roller/truck problem or something to do with the saddles, springs, etc. If a different roller and different trucks in the problem position do the same thing, it is not a roller/truck problem.
Okay so I moved the trucks to a different roller in a different position and of course nowww its working fine..so odd…thanks for all the help I appreciate it!
A couple of observations. Goldings do not have ball bearings in the trucks so eliminate that as an issue. Since it self corrected when switching places with a different roller and trucks it could be the shoulders of your trucks are not all the same diameter and the hooks are not all the same at the curved end that hold the trucks. This is common. Put the wrong roller/trucks into the wrong hook and it could pinch enough to prevent it from rolling smoothly.
I’ve only examined a Golding Jobber once, but in that case the roller problem was a mix of unevenly-worn hooks and trucks with some weak saddle springs. I may have added a short segment of spring to the weakest hooks.
Lack of lubrication here is a serious problem.