Adjusting the rails on a N series Kluge?
I’ve seen some mentions in the forums here about Kluges having adjustable rails. I’ve looked around on my press, and there does seem to be a variety of bolts and nuts are different areas of the rail system, but I’ve never found a good description of how to go about making this adjustment.
Has anyone done this before on an N series 12x18 Kluge? I’d love to get away from having to tape the rails, since my shop humidity seems to wreck havoc on the stability of the tape, i.e. it compresses after each job or changes characteristics.
Thanks!
James Beard
Vrooooom Press
Austin, TX
www.vrooooom.org
I’m interested in knowing too.
So, I got really frustrated after some recent roller shrinkage, and decided to just go for it. Looking at the rails with my roller gauge, it seemed that there was a bit of slope to the rails. They dropped in height at the bottom of the bed.
Each rail is attached to the side of the bed by 2 bolts and above the ink disc by a small nut. There’s a bit of play throughout when loosened, since the holes for the main bolts have some wiggle room. There’s an additional screw on the main roller track, but I haven’t messed with that one yet.
I recommend only removing one bolt at a time and to keep the others loosened a bit. The track itself is a little bulky, and you may need an extra set of hands to hold it in the right position when resetting the rails.
On my press, I ended up shimming the bottom behind the rail to fix the sloping action. This brought the height to exactly where I needed it, so that the roller gauge read 3/32 along that side.
The other rail is off a bit still and requires some taping, but I’ll look into fine tooling it early on this week.
If you’re having rail problems on your Kluge, I recommend trying out what I’ve outlined above. But the adjustment isn’t regulated very precisely, since all you can do is back off the bolts and try to reset it in the correct position. Alternately, it would be very easy to remove the rails and take them to a machine shop.
James Beard
Vrooooom Press
www.vroooom.org
if you were to slightly loosen the side rails, on the bed, you can probably tap with a ball peen hammer into place, then retighten. do not mess with the screw in the main roller track at the “elbow”. it is fitted and no adjustment is really there. then adjust top rails for even ink. sounds like you got most of it though. make sure something is not or did not hit the rail, as, once these are set and tight not much adjustment should be needed.