Double-Time It, Soldier!
Ok, so I get the George P. Gordon 9x13 up and running, new rollers and a treadle and lock some type up in the chase & turn to with the treadlin' and the printin'. Worked out pretty well, all thought up and everything. And I discovered in the process that I'd been dead wrong all this time about the rotational direction of the flywheel.
I'd thought that the flywheel turned toward the printer from the top when, in fact, it turns the same direction as the flywheel on the C&P: toward the back of the press from the top. I figured this out because the way the press opened after impression was just a little too abrupt. It was so abrupt that the press would actually thump and the platen would seem to fly back with considerable force.
When I looked at the cam race for the lever that lifts the platen from open to closed, I realized that it had a very quick action going forward, that is, toward impression when the flywheel rotated toward the rear. Running the flywheel backwards put that abrupt lift into an abrupt opening, which I don't think it was ever intended to be. That and the fact that it is the same cam raceway, as contours go, as the C&P convinced me that I'd been runnin' the press backwards all along.
But there were other issues more pressing, at least to me.
First off, I was standing there thinking that, when I had the Pearl, it seemed such a delight to run, so easy to peddle up and down, a breeze. It just seemed that I was burning a lot of energy getting the Gordon running. It was also getting me winded.
I printed a stack of 50 sheets and took a break to put 'em on the drying shelf and then went back to the press, starting up and running another 50. By that time I'd decided to shift from my left to my right leg to treadle and even halfway through that second stack of 50 sheets my right leg was wearing out.
I finished that stack of 50, put them on the drying shelf and got a drink of water. Then I went back to the press and did the next 50 with my left leg and the last 50 with my left starting and my right finishing the stack.
After I put the last stack on the rack I looked at the press and thought there had to be a better way. That or I was obviously a lot older now than I was when I had the Pearl in the shop and even older from when I had the Gordon hooked up to a 2x4 treadle, some 20-odd years further back in time.
I was further reminded of this age factor – and by the possibility that I was out of shape worse than I thought – when I ran the press a few ten or so impressions to clean it up. That being done – and I might add that it's nice to be able to lean over and clean a press from the front instead of from the sides – I took another break, had another drink of water, cleaned up some of the shop area and considered again what it was taking me to print 200 copies.
A little math later the next day got me the answer: To print 200 copies of anything was taking a little over half a mile.
Mathematically it makes perfect sense. Mathematically, if you figure that there are five turns of the flywheel to take one impression, it would take five stomps on the treadle to keep the flywheel moving around long enough to make the impression. And counting off on only one foot, it's something like 400 steps to cover a quarter mile.
Two hundred copies takes one thousand stomps, which means that if 400 stomps on one leg is a quarter mile, a thousand stomps is a bit over a half mile. So a press run of 200, including inking up and cleaning off, plus a few throw-aways along the way, comes easily to over a half mile.
Five stomps on the treadle for five rotations of the flywheel for one impression, well, it's easy to see where the getting tired was coming from.
At which point I went in the house & got out the old BB&S catalog that Dad left behind. That and a 1923 ATF catalog too. And inside each of those tomes is a run-down on the various statistics of the C&P and Golding Pearl presses. And I have PDFs of the booklets on them and the Golding presses too.
Turns out a 7x11 Pearl does one impression every three stomps on the treadle.
Three stomps on the Pearl versus five stomps on the Gordon.
It's no wonder the Pearl was a slick press to run.
Hell, I'm working almost twice as much, stomp-wise, on the Gordon as on the Pearl! That's like printing at a leisurely walk with the Pearl and hustling it double-time, soldier, on the Gordon!
Shit! I should never have given away that Pearl! What a moron!
I am left with only a few recourses, other than going all the way across the Mississippi to get a reconditioned Pearl – one what's been cleaned up so it'll look good in a studio. All of the recourses cost money and time and some self-denunciation. All of 'em involve finding a way to squeeze one more press into a space already overcrowded with two large presses & a table-top side-lever press, other equipment, shelves, storage, typecases, tools, bits and a printshop cat. And none of the ways of getting that done – not a single stinkin' one of 'em – will pass muster with Cindy.
My choices?
Put a motor on the Gordon.
Not what I had in mind, seein' as how I spent on the treadle already more 'n I'd spend on a motor by any stretch. Yeah, sure: I could do it. It'd be easy. But it's the principle of the thing, yo. I wanted to treadle a press.
Or get a Pearl, which would involve a lot more than just finding one for which I'd have to pay real money. Somehow moving the Gordon or finding it a home somewheres else. And the carping and weedling I'd hear from Cindy? Don't even think about it.
That's my choices. Them two choices alone all by they's lonesome.
Off stage I can hear my father grumbling. "I hope you jezebels are happy now! I told you this was gonna happen!"
There is only one other way that I can fix this problem – if you want to consider working twice as hard with one press over another I used to have as being a problem – is to take it on the chin, tough it out and settle for the fact that I'm gonna have to work slower or take more frequent breaks. And hope that my ability to run the press, my stamina, if you must, will improve over time with practice.
As if.
See, I have this very visual memory thing going on here: I remember my father sitting in his chair in the living room, cigarette in his hand, that dour look of desperation in old age, begging me to take his print shop, 12x18 C&P, granite stone, cases of old and new type, table-top paper cutter & all. Begging me 'cause he couldn't barely get out of the chair, let alone go down the steps to the basement and into his printery, as he had for decades for one reason or the other. And me saying I couldn't; didn't have room for it; what would I do with it?
That alone is enough to make me take it on the chin. That look of desperation and age from half a decade at least of serious immobilizing inactivity stopping him cold like a broken crutch. Makes a thousand stomps for 200 copies seem pretty easy, even if I eventually do have to revert or resort to the electric motor.
I'd thought that the flywheel turned toward the printer from the top when, in fact, it turns the same direction as the flywheel on the C&P: toward the back of the press from the top. I figured this out because the way the press opened after impression was just a little too abrupt. It was so abrupt that the press would actually thump and the platen would seem to fly back with considerable force.
When I looked at the cam race for the lever that lifts the platen from open to closed, I realized that it had a very quick action going forward, that is, toward impression when the flywheel rotated toward the rear. Running the flywheel backwards put that abrupt lift into an abrupt opening, which I don't think it was ever intended to be. That and the fact that it is the same cam raceway, as contours go, as the C&P convinced me that I'd been runnin' the press backwards all along.
But there were other issues more pressing, at least to me.
First off, I was standing there thinking that, when I had the Pearl, it seemed such a delight to run, so easy to peddle up and down, a breeze. It just seemed that I was burning a lot of energy getting the Gordon running. It was also getting me winded.
I printed a stack of 50 sheets and took a break to put 'em on the drying shelf and then went back to the press, starting up and running another 50. By that time I'd decided to shift from my left to my right leg to treadle and even halfway through that second stack of 50 sheets my right leg was wearing out.
I finished that stack of 50, put them on the drying shelf and got a drink of water. Then I went back to the press and did the next 50 with my left leg and the last 50 with my left starting and my right finishing the stack.
After I put the last stack on the rack I looked at the press and thought there had to be a better way. That or I was obviously a lot older now than I was when I had the Pearl in the shop and even older from when I had the Gordon hooked up to a 2x4 treadle, some 20-odd years further back in time.
I was further reminded of this age factor – and by the possibility that I was out of shape worse than I thought – when I ran the press a few ten or so impressions to clean it up. That being done – and I might add that it's nice to be able to lean over and clean a press from the front instead of from the sides – I took another break, had another drink of water, cleaned up some of the shop area and considered again what it was taking me to print 200 copies.
A little math later the next day got me the answer: To print 200 copies of anything was taking a little over half a mile.
Mathematically it makes perfect sense. Mathematically, if you figure that there are five turns of the flywheel to take one impression, it would take five stomps on the treadle to keep the flywheel moving around long enough to make the impression. And counting off on only one foot, it's something like 400 steps to cover a quarter mile.
Two hundred copies takes one thousand stomps, which means that if 400 stomps on one leg is a quarter mile, a thousand stomps is a bit over a half mile. So a press run of 200, including inking up and cleaning off, plus a few throw-aways along the way, comes easily to over a half mile.
Five stomps on the treadle for five rotations of the flywheel for one impression, well, it's easy to see where the getting tired was coming from.
At which point I went in the house & got out the old BB&S catalog that Dad left behind. That and a 1923 ATF catalog too. And inside each of those tomes is a run-down on the various statistics of the C&P and Golding Pearl presses. And I have PDFs of the booklets on them and the Golding presses too.
Turns out a 7x11 Pearl does one impression every three stomps on the treadle.
Three stomps on the Pearl versus five stomps on the Gordon.
It's no wonder the Pearl was a slick press to run.
Hell, I'm working almost twice as much, stomp-wise, on the Gordon as on the Pearl! That's like printing at a leisurely walk with the Pearl and hustling it double-time, soldier, on the Gordon!
Shit! I should never have given away that Pearl! What a moron!
I am left with only a few recourses, other than going all the way across the Mississippi to get a reconditioned Pearl – one what's been cleaned up so it'll look good in a studio. All of the recourses cost money and time and some self-denunciation. All of 'em involve finding a way to squeeze one more press into a space already overcrowded with two large presses & a table-top side-lever press, other equipment, shelves, storage, typecases, tools, bits and a printshop cat. And none of the ways of getting that done – not a single stinkin' one of 'em – will pass muster with Cindy.
My choices?
Put a motor on the Gordon.
Not what I had in mind, seein' as how I spent on the treadle already more 'n I'd spend on a motor by any stretch. Yeah, sure: I could do it. It'd be easy. But it's the principle of the thing, yo. I wanted to treadle a press.
Or get a Pearl, which would involve a lot more than just finding one for which I'd have to pay real money. Somehow moving the Gordon or finding it a home somewheres else. And the carping and weedling I'd hear from Cindy? Don't even think about it.
That's my choices. Them two choices alone all by they's lonesome.
Off stage I can hear my father grumbling. "I hope you jezebels are happy now! I told you this was gonna happen!"
There is only one other way that I can fix this problem – if you want to consider working twice as hard with one press over another I used to have as being a problem – is to take it on the chin, tough it out and settle for the fact that I'm gonna have to work slower or take more frequent breaks. And hope that my ability to run the press, my stamina, if you must, will improve over time with practice.
As if.
See, I have this very visual memory thing going on here: I remember my father sitting in his chair in the living room, cigarette in his hand, that dour look of desperation in old age, begging me to take his print shop, 12x18 C&P, granite stone, cases of old and new type, table-top paper cutter & all. Begging me 'cause he couldn't barely get out of the chair, let alone go down the steps to the basement and into his printery, as he had for decades for one reason or the other. And me saying I couldn't; didn't have room for it; what would I do with it?
That alone is enough to make me take it on the chin. That look of desperation and age from half a decade at least of serious immobilizing inactivity stopping him cold like a broken crutch. Makes a thousand stomps for 200 copies seem pretty easy, even if I eventually do have to revert or resort to the electric motor.
posted by the printer at 5:48 AM
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