Saving Mr. Gordon

Episode 5: July 1, 2022

In which one press is disassembled and another is moved.


After an interesting June (driving from Colorado to Wisconsin and back), it’s time to start cleaning the Gordon in preparation for painting and restoration. The idea is to take the press apart in a methodical manner and clean each piece in preparation for painting and reassembly. The good news is that I can lift each individual piece.



The two largest pieces are the sides of the frame:
















Much cleaning, involving a grinder fitted with a wire cup.


July 6: I drove into Denver to remove the treadle and hook from the Damon & Peets press. The treadle was originally cast, the hook is wrought iron. The idea was to measure it, make a  scale drawing of the hook, and prepare to crate it for shipping. 












August 17: In Denver again, but with Don, Steve, and their tilt-bed trailer. The first order of business is to lift it off the temporary pallet and bolt it on a transport pallet.

















Then we roll the press up a ramp and winch it onto the tilt-bed trailer. Steve and Don secure it with the appropriate straps, so it won't go anywhere we don't want it to go, as Tom P. watches.











Then we deliver it to the workshop in LaPorte.


August 31: Crating up the treadle to ship it to an undisclosed location for casting in iron. (I've been sworn to secrecy by the person I'm dealing with.)










September - was a travel month, so nothing got done. Again


Next: Clean, paint, repeat.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Saving Mr. Gordon Episode 6: October 22, 2022 In which parts are cleaned mechanically, and a test reassembly is begun. Having been otherwise occupied in September, I had to let Mr. Gordon sit for a bit. Too bad, since I missed out on a lot of good weather. October 28 - After thoroughly cleaning the parts with a wire cup mounted to a grinder, I started to reassemble the frame for painting before the weather turned too cold. Note the D&P sitting in the background - it's a luxury to have a full-size pattern to follow for accurate reassembly.  November 4 - Now to carefully mask bearing surfaces before painting - I used dowels and rolled-up cardboard to mask the interiors of bearings and oiling points. November 9 - paint the frame November 12 -  Two coats of black later, it’s looking pretty sharp. Weather has turned cold, so progress will necessarily slow down for a while. To compensate, I’ve brought several smaller assemblies home with me to paint in my (somewhat)...
Read more
Image
Saving Mr. Gordon Episode 2: Who was GP Gordon? Having failed to make a living as an actor in the early 19th century, George Phineas Gordon apprenticed as a printer in New York. He must have taken to the work quite handily, for he soon opened his own printing house. An inveterate tinkerer, he began to concern himself with how printing presses were designed & used, and started designing presses.   His early innovations include the "Yankee Job Press" and the "Firefly," but his real breakthrough was the "Franklin" press, introduced in 1858. Gordon claimed that Benjamin Franklin had come to him in a dream and described the design and action of the press. It is only fitting that this style of press became the de facto standard model for job printing in the US.  The “Gordon Jobber” is what we refer to as an “Old Style” press, and thanks to the Chandler & Price Company, it is the most common platen press you will find in the US and possibly the world.  G...
Read more
Image
Saving Mr. Gordon Episode 1: April 19, 2022     W hat hath Don wrought? (or, another fine mess...) My good friend Don H. offered me a pallet of scrap press parts he had in storage. He had picked it up several years ago when he was moving a press for another friend (since deceased). It's been stored in the upstairs of his workshop and was starting to get in the way of other storage.  Naturally, since neither of us ever could say no to a pile of free cast iron, we set out to see what we could assemble from it.  Turns out, it was most of an original GP Gordon "New Style" platen press, circa 1870-1880.  After the initial test assembly, I figured this might eat up about a year’s worth of project time. Sure, there were parts missing - important parts too. Some I knew we could make, and some we might be able to figure out how to make if we couldn't track them down in the wild.   What follows is the story of how my friends and I try to save an antique printing pres...
Read more