Printing Press/Etching Press?

[secretsmoker]

Has anyone out there ever attempted to build a press before?

My friend is a penniless artist (although recognised by the Saatchi people) and I stupidly suggested that I might be able to build a decent sized press out of scrap.

I have no doubt that this is possible, however it will be the largest project I have built to date.

First thoughts were to try to do something similar to a tried and tested design...something like...

Just in case the image disappears it basically consists of a table frame which supports a plate. The plate is driven by a handle to slide from one end of the table frame to the other. On top of this sitting in the centre of the frame is a roller with a mechanism to adjust the downward pressure against the plate being driven underneath it.

The whole thing will ideally fold up, although I need to learn to walk before i try to run! I may well have bitten off more than I can chew with this project, although that is what I first thought with the rust repairs to my car, and that turned out OK!

First things I need to find are some gears/rack/pinion/worm gear of some description for the sliding plate. Any suggestions on commonly scrapped items containing gearing? (looks over at £20 MX5 open diff and spare gearbox...may be overkill)

I also need some suggestions for things I could use as a roller.

Not sure how big this will be yet, ideally to print at least A3 size.

I have a long way to go before I start chopping and welding but any input is very weldcome!

 

[rtbcomp]

An old mangle will yield a handle and gears (get the type where both rollers are driven). The mangle rollers probably wouldn't be good enough though.

 

[bump]

Depends entirely on what he is planning on printing on it both in terms of substrate and printing medium. What are his plans for the plating process? Ali, Polyester or something more exotic?

 

[Paul99]

An old mangle will yield a handle and gears (get the type where both rollers are driven). The mangle rollers probably wouldn't be good enough though.

If they are elm rollers (which most were) they'd likely be the only bits up to the job. The CI gears are weak point. Many years ago the old man and I got into making cricket bats - started off as a means to get a decent bat at a decent price. Before knocking in the face of the bat needs pressing / rolling to compress the wood fibres and harden the surface. We tried several different ways to press the bats including turning a set of mangle rollers with the correct profile and running the bat through it over and over - that was the plan what actually happened was the gears that mesh both rollers together burst almost instantly.

In the end we made our own press not a million miles away from that in the picture though much less refined (mostly wood with angle iron tracks and braces etc and all from scrap). A carriage holding the bat was pulled (via a threaded bar) under a profiled oak roller pulled down onto the bats face with a boxful of lead weights. From start to finish you could easily reduce the thickness of a bat by 1/4". About the time we got it all working spot on I went to Uni and at the same time became fed up of club politics so gave up cricket burnt all my bridges and never looked back. A few years later having not been used for a few years and fed up of it taking up so much room the poor old bat roller we'd put hours and hours of work into was unbolted and put outside where it's remained to this day - a lot of it has rotted away and over the years we've cannibalised it for useful bits too so it's now completely unrecognisable - a real shame really as this was almost pre-digital camera days and I have few (maybe none now the old computer died) photos of it as a reminder.

Anyway, sorry to the OP for taking the thread so far off topic but it kind of proves that given enough time and effort you'll be able to make what you want using just scrap or not.

 

[secretsmoker]

Depends entirely on what he is planning on printing on it both in terms of substrate and printing medium. What are his plans for the plating process? Ali, Polyester or something more exotic?

You raise an important point in that I have absolutely no idea! As I have very limited understanding of the process I think I am going to need to ask her exactly what she intends to use in terms of plates. I seem to remember on the pic the plate looked to be something like perspex but I will try to find out more before going any further!

 

[julianthegypsy]

Why does it have to be a roller press? Wouldn't it be easier to modify an old cider press or something similar, or build one with a hydraulic ram and a power pack?

 

[secretsmoker]

An old mangle will yield a handle and gears (get the type where both rollers are driven). The mangle rollers probably wouldn't be good enough though.

I did see a £10 mangle (Ebay I think) but it was all the way down in Kent which makes it a rather more expensive mangle! I will carry on searching and see if anything comes up as I don't think the amount of pressure delivered needs to be humungous...

If they are elm rollers (which most were) they'd likely be the only bits up to the job. The CI gears are weak point. Many years ago the old man and I got into making cricket bats - started off as a means to get a decent bat at a decent price. Before knocking in the face of the bat needs pressing / rolling to compress the wood fibres and harden the surface. We tried several different ways to press the bats including turning a set of mangle rollers with the correct profile and running the bat through it over and over - that was the plan what actually happened was the gears that mesh both rollers together burst almost instantly.

In the end we made our own press not a million miles away from that in the picture though much less refined (mostly wood with angle iron tracks and braces etc and all from scrap). A carriage holding the bat was pulled (via a threaded bar) under a profiled oak roller pulled down onto the bats face with a boxful of lead weights. From start to finish you could easily reduce the thickness of a bat by 1/4". About the time we got it all working spot on I went to Uni and at the same time became fed up of club politics so gave up cricket burnt all my bridges and never looked back. A few years later having not been used for a few years and fed up of it taking up so much room the poor old bat roller we'd put hours and hours of work into was unbolted and put outside where it's remained to this day - a lot of it has rotted away and over the years we've cannibalised it for useful bits too so it's now completely unrecognisable - a real shame really as this was almost pre-digital camera days and I have few (maybe none now the old computer died) photos of it as a reminder.

Anyway, sorry to the OP for taking the thread so far off topic but it kind of proves that given enough time and effort you'll be able to make what you want using just scrap or not.

The Cricket bat press you describe does sound ingenious. I think the amount of pressure required to squash a bat will probably be considerably more than this thing will need to deliver but the principle is the same. Hadn't really considered wooden rollers in my eagerness to solve every problem with welding! I will see whether I can source anything locally this afternoon as I finish work early. Couple of places which are fairly likely to have something useful lying around; failing that I have some big logs I pruned last year which might be latheable by now...

Just need to clear some space in the garage as usual so that I can actually make a start!

 

[secretsmoker]

Why does it have to be a roller press? Wouldn't it be easier to modify an old cider press or something similar, or build one with a hydraulic ram and a power pack?

Oooh now then I do like the cut of your jib, and no it doesn't really have to be a roller press at all necessarily. Hydraulic ram might be overkill although it would be cool to make it automated as said friend is a bit accident prone and I was worrying slightly about supplying something to her that could easily make short work of fingers etc! I have seen some other presses which did look a little like a cider press...

Perhaps I will subject you all to my awesome skills at using Microsoft Paint soon after honing a few ideas on paper! Who needs autoCAD!?

Thanks everyone for humouring my harebrained scheme. This one is slightly more likely to come to fruition as it is for somebody else!

 

[Paul99]

We initially made the rollers from Oak as we had plenty to hand and the ability to turn it but we also didn't want to go to the expense of getting a SS one made if the machine didn't really work. We were nervous that it would split under the pressure but it held up fine in fact it's still around in as new condition somewhere I only seen it last week. Your application though might call for a bit more precision so a wooden roller might only be useful for mockups and initial testing etc.

 

[rtbcomp]

I've made a couple of rollers from condemned pub-sized CO2 bottles.

Cut the ends off and weld a plate at each end. You should be able to machine them true, a steel one is about 4mm thick, an aluminium one about half an inch.

I drive mine with a tumble drier motor working through a Belle cement mixer gearbox which gives a 40:1 reduction. The motor is easy to reverse with a single pole double throw swicth.

 

[bump]

You raise an important point in that I have absolutely no idea! As I have very limited understanding of the process I think I am going to need to ask her exactly what she intends to use in terms of plates. I seem to remember on the pic the plate looked to be something like perspex but I will try to find out more before going any further!

That'll be a polyester plate. cheap to produce.

A roller press gives a much cleaner result as there is only a small area in contact with the substrate at any one time. With a horizontal press you're much more likely to have issues of bleed due to creating a vacuum between the printed areas.

 

[mike 109444]

I got one of these (it's a Pioneer !) and made this.

 

[Screwdriver]

I'm knocking up some tooling in sketchup and it looks like A3 would fit nicely into a deep throat flypress....

S.