Since this photo was taken, I have added a treadle, removed the ink fountain, and cleaned things up a bit.
The press we do most of our work with is a Chandler and Price 7×11 Old Style.
This is a hand-fed treadle-driven letterpress. When we got the press it was set up for motor drive, had an ink fountain, but no arm or pawl for rotating the ink disk. It has three form rollers which were relatively hard material. Since then I have pretty much determined that two of the rollers are urethane rubber since they are slowly exuding a brown goo from either end where the compound meets the core.
I made an arm and pawl to rotate the ink disk, added a treadle so I can run it at my own relaxed pace, and put it on a special dolly that allows me to move it around the shop without making it 5 inches taller. Because of the unfortunate leg spacing on the press I have yet to figure some sort of undercarriage to add so I could just move it around with my pallet jack.
Because of the relaxed pace I also removed the ink fountain which, for the size of print runs I usually do, would be just a big cleaning chore. Actually, because of all the hardened ink already on it, it already is a cleaning chore, stashed away in a box somewhere in the shop.
I also purchased a new set of composition rollers from Tarheel Roller & Brayer Company on cores I made myself, and also made trucks to match, so now it produces mighty fine print quality.
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