Poco Proof Press #0 problem
Hi All,
I was happily printing on my Poco and suddenly the handle was turning freely without turning the cylinder. The only possible clue is I found a metal smooth pin maybe 2 inches long. I cannot figure out what makes the cylinder turn with the shaft that goes through it. Seems like there should be some sort of pin or gears. It looks like there is too much space between the arm and the parts that it goes into. I’m in the middle of printing a many layered reduction linoleum block print and don’t know what to do!! Thanks in advance for any advice/info.
oops—posted twice!
So I’ve found a hole that fits the pin in the top of the handle side of the cylinder just inside. I managed to get the gap between the handle and the part the shaft goes into to shrink by cranking and using pressure inward. Now I just have to get the shaft hole, which must exist for the pin to go into (joining the shaft and cylinder) to line up with the hole but I can’t find it. Could it be I’ve worked the handle in too far? Or not far enough?! Am I right about this pin being what turns the cylinder when the handle rotates?
The normal arrangement uses a taper pin, which goes into an equivalent taper hole with larger and smaller ends. Make sure the handle holes and the shaft holes are matched (lined up but not turned around 180ยบ) and put the thin end of the pin into the large end of the hole.
I have seen people try to insert the small end of the pin into the small end of the hole. That won’t work, and a bigger hammer won’t help either.
Thank you so much! So, if I understand you, the hole goes through the shaft but it has a small end and a large end? I just can’t steem to find the shaft hole. Is the shaft supposed to protrude on the non-handle side of the press? At first when I was working on the problem it was flush and it has a hole that looks like it might take a screw but I can’t seem to find a picture online to see what it should be like. Right now it is empty. I have worked the handle inwards so there is no gap next to it but there is a little gap over where the shaft goes into the cylinder. I guess the hole is inside and hasn’t moved far enough inwards to show up where the hole in the cylinder is…
Attached are some photos of our Poco.
John
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Poco3.jpg
Poco1.jpg
Please tell me the serial number of your Poco for the census. See the link for the location.
https://vandercookpress.info/vanderblog/poco/poco-census/
Well, FYI to any other Poco newbies I got it all fixed. I needed to remove the tympan and packing and even before that I had to get it unstuck. To get it unstuck I used several heavy duty chisels to nudge the roller forward but before that I tore away the papers I had on top of my printing paper on either side. Once the roller moved it came down and the handle moved it. I knew that wasn’t a fix as the minute there was resistance it would get stuck and the handle would spin. It turned out the hole in the shaft that needed to be lined up with the hole in the cylinder assembly was in a place where the handle would have space instead of being snugged up to the other parts. So I used my rubber mallet and got it back outward till the holes lined up. I gave it a good lubrication on the gears and oiled the 8 holes according to the official instructions. I used a new offset litho blanket as my packing and duralar as the tympan. It looks so nice and is working well again. Thanks, parallel_imp for your help!! The print that got stuck wasn’t altogether ruined but there is a shiny band where it sat for a number of hours till I unstuck it.
I’ve also posted my new way of registration using Ternes-Burton pins and quoins on all four sides. Each print has the tabs for the pins taped on and the registration comes out perfect. On the reduction linoleum prints I’m doing I might do 12 -15 layers and this keeps everything lined up.
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I use registration pins in a similar way, but for an acetate sheet, which makes it easy to position the next color. It also helps rebuild a form for reprinting after you’ve distributed the furniture.
Good point, parallel_imp. I do use a clear duralar sheet to figure out what I will cut next and it has the same tabs and uses the same pins. I even used duralar clear sheets for making stencils for corrections for colors I wasn’t happy with after I had cut away that part of the block. I hadn’t thought of it but maybe it means I could take it all apart and find the same place again. I’ll have to think about that.
Thinking about it, it is roll wet-media Duralar I use as a topsheet and some of the underpacking on my 24x24 .070” Vandercook, but it’s flat Mylar stripping base for the registration sheet. The Mylar is very stable but the Duralar seems to degrade with age.