press points-press guides

Hello jonathaneclipse,

I have a set of press points that I acquired for my Vandercook No. 4 at Gerald’s suggestion. They perform “as advertised” and have alleviated much frustration. They’re hard to come by, though, so I think that making them more available would be much appreciated among flatbed cylinder press operators.

I can’t comment on the point-guide function of your proposed tool since I haven’t had occasion to explore, hands-on, the Rummonds method (Richard-Gabriel Rummonds, Printing on the Iron Handpress, chapter 17). I did wonder, however, why the point guides are cylindrical rather than square. Rummonds says that “In the early 1970s, Harry Duncan wrote to me about a method, utilizing em quads with centered pins imbedded in them, that he used for determining the position of the points on the tympan. I tried his method for a while, but I soon abandoned it in favor of the more exact point guides system described below….”

Perhaps you could explain your design a little more fully? Alone, the pin part is slightly under type high, but when slipped into the casing it is slightly over?

Thanks for working on this!

Barbara

Hello Barb,

I would like to get these press points. Any idea where I can buy these?

Thanks.

[thomas]

Press points, as described and shown here:

http://bielerpressvii.blogspot.com/2007/08/press-points.html

can be obtained from Letterpress Things.

Gerald

I have made something similar by hammering brads into furniture and clipping them off slightly below type-high. The softer metal can then be sharpened with a fine file. Another trick is to glue a piece of rough sandpaper (rough side up, of course) to a 5 pica piece of furniture set on it’s side. Clamped next to the form it will keep the tail of a sheet from dragging on the edge of the type or border.

Paul

i have some of these, they are not cast on an elrod but cast on a ludlow. i’ve been casting on ludlows since the early 1970’s, i’ve seen a lot of different things done with ludlows but i still can’t figure out how these things were cast???

Dick, commercially-made press points were set into both Ludlow and Elrod cast material. I have both versions. I don’t believe the points were cast into place, but set there after casting (that is the only possibilty with Elrod material), no different from driving into wood furniture and then pointing after. It is a simple process, no need to re-engineer. All you need are brads, drill, hammer, file, and a piece of lead or wood furniture. This is exactly how I make pin mounts for photopolymer plates. Costs pennies to do.

very much appreciate the posts on this subject, Mick is working now on prototype mark 5 which I will see on next Sunday, interesting learning about other methods too-Barbara:the cone sits in the “canister”(thanks Gerald for the terminology) at just below type high so it can be packed up to just above for use on tympan marking registration systems a la Rummonds.Cone should be sharp of course.
It is all good fun-keeps the mind engaged too!