My new Morgan Line-O-Scribe press. Thanks John!

Last week I went to Canada and picked up a Morgan Line-O-Scribe press!

So my post begging for a cheap proof press worked!

An email showed up from John in Simcoe Ont. Canada. Seems that his Rona store had a Morgan Line-O-Scribe tucked away in a storage closet. He needed to make more room for the accounting files. So we agreed on a price and off I went over the border. 3 hours later we had all the goodies loaded into the Tribute and back home I went. 

Got to the US border and .... no duty required! Hot dang. 

So then I needed to make a table to put everything on since the press came with all the type and everything. One of my friends told me via FB that he had his son's old drafting table that they built and did I want it, else it was going out front with the trash. YIKES! 

So out to Albion NY I went and 2 hours later I had a new project.

Table redone, with a drawer to hold all the type furniture etc. Hot dang now I get to get some more paper and off to printing editions we go. 

Here is the new repurposed drafting table 

Did I say that it came with type?

Here I cut a piece of plywood to fit in the press so that my 1/4 inch woodblocks would fit.

Came with ink and a glass plate and stand. Nifty.

After a bit of adjusting .... I got a great print and they are now consistent .

Homemade woodblock printing press part 4

Well here is a video of the working press.

Then I carried everything upstairs to the studio.

It took me 2 days of trying every trick in the book to find out that the 80 LB cylinders were not heavy enough to do the job.

The test prints were uneven no matter what I did to adjust for more pressure (move the woodblock plates up).

Got even printing results when I used a thin felt blanket, but the print was to light to be usable.

DANG!

Back to the drawing board.

Homemade woodblock printing press part 3

Well here is an update on the homemade press.

I designed all the gears, printed them out. Then tacked them to 3/4 inch plywood, drilled holes and then used my band-saw to cut out the teeth. Also did the Rack Gears (flat ones). Then I attached everything together, centered and aligned.

I had to cut out some circular disks to stop the gears from rolling off the table rack gears.

This all worked really well!

Added a handle and it was ready to try.