roller/truck troubles with my table top press

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Unionacademy,

Seems to me from what you say that the roller tryucks are not the proper size for roller, or rollers are old and shrunk in size, or never made right to match the trucks. If rollers are on plate, and not touching plate they are being held there by the roller trucks being larger..
You may also have bad or weak roller springs. Other problems may also be causing your trouble.
Hard to tell without observing press in action. Evidently the press was not tested for proper printing before being shipped.

Hope this helps somewhat. Please email for further info, if need be.

SAL

It sounds to me like the roller hooks are not retracting under spring tension that is supposed to hold the roller trucks on the rails and the rollers on the ink disc. Check the straight portion of the hooks, or the rods they are attached to (are there double hooks attached to one rod or individual rods with a single hook?) to be sure one or more aren’t bent slightly, which will prevent them sliding smoothly in and out. Be sure the combined length of the roller cover and trucks isn’t longer than the space between hooks for each roller. Some Pilot roller cores have lugs pinched on them which are supposed to fit into notches on the inner side of the trucks — be sure if those are present that they’re lining up with the truck notches so they fit together. If the rollers are new there should not be a problem with a difference of diameter between them and the trucks, but that would only affect the actual inking of type, not cause a failure such as you describe.

There are double hooks attached to one rod but the rods don’t seem to be bent. I’m going to measure the distance between the hooks tonight and see if the length is the problem.

Thanks so much for all the suggestions, i’m going to keep plugging away to see what works!

If you take the rollers off the press and the rods don’t slide in and out smoothly and have a fair amount of spring pressure pulling them in, that may be the problem. I have had a similar press where the rods got bent — it doesn’t take much to make them bind.

No luck so far. I removed the cotter pins holding the springs on, removed the rods and they don’t seem to be bent. After putting the springs back on and replacing the cotter pins, I tried pulling on the rod hooks and both rods slide in and out fairly smoothly so I don’t think it’s the rods or springs. I’m getting a little discouraged at this point and I’m not really sure what to try next. Maybe new trucks?

The roller trucks are the least likely culprits, unless they’re too long. Check to see if the rod springs are fairly strong — they should pull pretty hard on the rod when you pull it out. With the rollers and trucks installed, have someone hold the handle in the position that puts the rollers half way up the rails, and then pull out on the hooks to see how much resistance there is and whether you can see where it comes from. You could also try just installing one roller, since if the hook can swivel a little that may relieve the stickiness. If it does I’ll bet the problem is that the trucks are pushing out on the hooks enough to cause the rods to bind. If so, you could machine a few thousandths off the outside of the trucks to see if that helps.

With the hooks parallel to each other carefully measure the distance between them inside to inside, and compare that with the distance between the roller trucks outside to outside. Even a few thousandths of an inch oversize will cause a problem, but as much as a sixteenth of an inch less on the rollers is what I would expect.

I am excited to report that my press is working fabulously well. I tried many different suggestions but nothing seemed to work. After measuring the distance between the roller hooks and the length of the rollers/trucks it was clear they were the problem. The rollers & trucks were 1/8th of an inch too long and after having a local machine shop take 1/16th off each of the trucks, the press works like a charm.

Thank you so much to everyone who posted suggestions and advice, it was much appreciated and I’m sure this isn’t the first problem I’m going to have to trouble shoot!