Good Source for Good Rollers

One of the most costly parts of having letterpress equipment is the need for a good set of rollers for the press. You can have all the fancy-pants ink & paper that you want but if you're running busted up rollers, no make-ready in the world is going to save your work from lookin' cheap. You gotta have good rollers, well adjusted & not overly down on the type, to print solid colors. And if you're into text in large chunks, a pitted set of old rollers, hard and nasty lookin', will show up as fades and over-inking.
     Getting good rollers without going broke is hard task. For a 10x15 C&P, a set of three rollers runs between $220 and $500 in old-school composition and between $340 and $700 in appropriate duro rubber. Vinyl is only slightly cheaper but not always.
     There are probably many small, local shops that might be able to fix up rollers for printers, but it's not like they advertise a lot. And among printers the word of such places gets passed around slowly.

So one day I'm cruisin' the web looking at websites & blog pages of other letterpress shops (and studios). One of 'em, Joie Studio, had a blog, wherein the proprietess, Tina, wrote about her setting up her printshop – er, studio. One entry was about her having found a source of roller rehabilitation in her own neighborhood, a place called Ramco Roller Products. Out in San Dimas, California. Run by a fellow Tina identified as Adrian.
     I went through the usual search on the InterWebs for the place recommended and, upon finding an email address, I sent off a query to Adrian on getting rollers for the Gordon done up.
     Now prior to this I'd done business on three occasions that I remember with Brown Regrinding. I'd gotten new rubber rollers for the 10x15 for about $200. A set of brand new rollers for a rehabilitated 7x11 Pearl Improved cost me about $180. I was impressed with the rollers I got back for the two presses. I still have the 10x15 running and I've had absolutely no problems with those rollers for over eight years now.
     Then Brown Regrinding went out of business.
     A bunch of folks in the letterpress game noticed the closing and many bemoaned the end of access to a reliable, quality source for economical rubber roller services. Of course the word of this closing got around eventually to those needing or wanting the kind of service that Brown Regrinding had provided. If the company had been "on the web" the news of the closing might have gotten around quicker.
     It works like that any more: you gotta have a web presence.

A day after I'd sent off my query I got an email back from Adrian Ramos, who runs the shop. Adrian gave a bit of background on his company, mentioning that the company had been making rollers for printers for 25 years. He said that the rollers for the Gordon, based on the meager information I'd given him, would cost $55 each.
     I put the rollers – two with compo on 'em and one a home-brew stock made of 7/16 steel bar stock – in a box and sent 'em off to Adrian.
     A couple days later, I got an email from Adrian saying that he'd received the stocks and that they'd been finished very quickly. He also mentioned that I'd estimated the cost of shipping a bit too high and that he'd be sending me a check for the overage.
     A couple days later a check arrived; within the week the rollers were on my front porch, delivered by one of two friendly & often-seen UPS delivery guys.

I am known as a pretty cynical, mean old curmudgeonly gringo. I agree most of the time with that assessment. But there's something about even-handed, fair & honest workmanship that I find impossible to dismiss. When I see timely and careful attention to quality or excellence, I am very deeply impressed.
     The rollers I got back from Ramco Roller Products are every bit the quality of what printers used to see from Brown Regrinding.
     I'm amazed that the folks I know in letterpress printing don't know about Ramco. You'd think, what with the so-called letterpress revival & and the space it's taken up on the InterWebs, that Ramco Rollers would be known across the letterpress and printing spectrum, even without a web presence. Which is why I'm bringing this to whoever it is reads my blather.

So here's the deal: Ramco Roller Products does roller rehab for letterpress printers. They have a quick turn-around, even for small fish like myself, and the work is excellent. The rollers that I have on the Gordon carry ink nicely & evenly. They're just the right elasticity or durometer or whatever to use in letterpress and, with Morgan Expansion trucks on the press, it's easy to set the rollers for type-high and go on with a job.
     I'm making a flat out recommendation: If you need rollers for your press, send Adrian an email [adrianramco[at]yahoo.com] and get his price list. Or call him up (909.592.1002). You'll find an economical source for quality rollers for you press. Even that one you have that you made roller cores out of steel bar stock.