Making a cast iron press

I am a student taking a foundry class, and want to make a cast iron press. Does anyone know where i could obtain information about the mechanics and fabrication of different presses?

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You might want to start at http://www.handpress.org/

A book to consider is “Printing on the Iron Handpress by Rummonds”. Another one is “American Iron Hand Presses” by Saxe. That should give you an overview of what you are trying to build…

I know a couple people have made replicas of iron presses, perhaps Albions or Columbians. It might take some searching.

I wish you luck, and I hope you can do the post-casting machining with ease. My uncle, who makes repro steam engines, up to about 10 horsepower always has said that casting is the easy part.

You can go to the US Patent & Trademark Office web site and get patent drawings of many small ( or large ) presses . Cost is usually around $3 and the info is sent pdf to your email . I used the book ” Personal Impressions , The small printing press in 19th century america ” by Elizabeth M Harris , to get the patent number for the press shown . Presses from 1850’s - about 1890 are shown . It’s fun just to look up the patent and look at the drawings and the book is a must have for any student of printing equipment . P.S. Don’t forget Harold Sterne”s books on printing and bindery equipment . ED

I am sharing my little research secret here… USPTO charges piecemeal for everything they can. Filing a patent appears to cost $155. Yet, by the time you get a patent issued, it will cost you over $1,500. I understand: user fees for users of services. However, for free patents with full text search, try www.google.com/patents .

Google has OCRed almost all patents, so you can search within the text of patents, by number, by geographical location, etc. I have a folder of Benton patents related to type casting, Rouse equipment patents, and the patents to my Turtle slug cutter.

You can also download any patent as a PDF for free from Google’s service.

Enjoy!