Moving My Letterpress

I’m in the middle of gutting my house, so my letterpress is kind-of in the road. To be more specific it was sitting in my dinning room. So I decided to move it & my galley proof press to a more permanent home in my sweetheart’s basement.

When I first bought the press I had access to an engine hoist & pickup truck, so moving it into storage wasn’t a problem. To move it from storage to my place I only had access to a pickup truck. To make it a bit more movable I stripped off as much of the press as I could; counter weight, connecting rods & assorted fiddly bits.

In this lighter state a rather strong man lifted it onto the pickup & the press was driven to my house. Here I strapped it to a moving dolly & wheeled it into my dinning room.

Now I have nothing to move my press with. I had toyed with renting a truck but I didn’t think that I would be able to get the press down the stairs and into the basement unless I disassembled it.

So I borrowed a gear puller and with liberal hammer beatings I managed to disassemble the press.

After only three trips with my Saturn loaded down, I’ve got the press pieces into the basement.

The only problem I had was with the platen. It would only come off the axle so far before it would bind, and I couldn’t get the axel out of the frame. With a bit of liquid wrench and persistent hammering I managed to separate the parts, but I’m not looking forward to getting them back together again.
Just to give an idea of how heavy this thing is, I borrowed a hand cart just to wheel the platen around. The cart was rated for 330 pounds carrying capacity, but the plated was so heavy it still managed to bend one of the cart’s casters.

Now I have to finalize the exact location and reassemble the press. After that, all I have left to move is my type cabinet.