Ampersands and Old Lace: My New Best Friend: Alexander!

This past November I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and the amazing Carl Montford had a 5x8 Craftsmen Table-Top Platen press for sale! Having been wanting a real press for quite some time, I jumped on the offer. It didn't need a lot of mechanical work, but it did need a lot of de-rusting TLC. John and I were up for the challenge.

Step 1: De-rust the trucks and roller cores.

(on the left is before, on the right is after)

Step 2: Sanding the wood! We got this lovely base from Carl, and we also had to sand the feedboard.

Step 3: De-rust the press! Here's carl inspecting the bed of the press, before we get ready to paint.

Step 4: TAPE! The press was a gun-metal green color, and we wanted it to be more traditional (black and shiny!).

Step 5: Paint! Here is John, spraying the press outside. And it was COLD that day!

Step 6: Stain and Varnish the wood. They're different shades...but we're ok with it.

Step 7: Order new rollers! They took about 3 weeks, and were quite expensive,

but the press won't work without them!

Step 8: Boxcar Base and Quoins! The base arrived the same day as the rollers (what timing!), and we found the quoins at a shop down in Tacoma. Unfortunately we have to use two different sets of quoins, which requires two different keys! Hopefully I won't have to unlock the base that often, since I plan to mostly print with polymer.