book chases

i have a few, I have no interest in selling mine, I think I bought them from the Late Dave Churchman.

You might reach out to his son Andrew via his website buyletterpress.com

In this last year I had two pairs of steel chases made for my small Albion. One of the local machine shops cut them all out of 3/4” sheet steel, using water-jet technology (which can cut square corners). I had to do the chore of cleaning up the sharp edges, and remove rust, and painting. I needed simple rectangular chases, but a machine shop should be able to cut any bevels or anomalies needed - for a plumber-priced fee.

ullmerbookchase.png

I have a Kelly-B chase that had been bodged into a book chase by printer X. One of his former workers later told me the cross bars were not square to the edges, and it was unsuitable for the intended book work.
Today, it may be better to make something new than hope for workable vintage examples.

thanks everyone for the conversation and advise!

Parallel_imp, what about planing or sanding a couple of narrow pieces of furniture to compensate for the angle of the crossbar? - I assume the chase is still 90 degrees rectangular. Or having a machine shop square it up by milling the out-of-square sides?

Bob

Bob, certainly those could correct any flaws of the cross-bars. But as I had a standard cross-bar chase on the Heidelberg cylinder, it has waited for actual need.
I actually had a machinist make a cross-bar for the Heidelberg chase, and it was very slightly angled, which makes back-up a problem. Later found an OEM cross bar: there’s nothing like Original Heidelberg.