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who else gets to deal with headaches like this?

  • Thread starter rattler
  • Start date
well its that time of year again and i had to print the firemans ball ribbons for the local vollenteer fire department. i have no clue how larger companies print specialty ribbons but i am very familiar with how we do it.

first we use a press thats exact date of construction is unknown. its a Chandler & Price press with a Kluge feeder, to give you an idea of its age it is the FIRST sheet fed printing press that ever worked correctly............trust me this thing couldnt pass an OSHA approvement if it tried :grin: ................yah have to push start the friggin thing(pictures to follow tonight)........

the form that holds the type that we print weights roughly 70 pounds you have to lift this out of the press every time you want to change the wording like from Chief to Asst. Chief to Fireman or what ever...........there are 8 changes in all............you feed the ribbon up from a rigged up holder down in the bowels of the press, feed it through some slices in the paper that you print against and the machine puts the ink on the form than it squeezes the form against the paper table and if yah have everything lined up correctly the ribbon gets printed..........and then yah pull the ribbion out 6-12 inches and it prints another one and so on and so on..................500 ribbons later(every one who attends gets a generic ribbon) your back is screaming and if your lucky yah havent hurt a finger lifting that 70# form in and out or any other number of ways of getting caught in that contraption..........my back is frigging killing me................

oh well glad i only print ribbons once a year.....................im off to supervise DSL being put into our house........will take pics of the press when i get back to work and upload them tonight...............
 
Wow that sounds like a pain in the butt. I bet you did a great job though! :-D
 
I'd love to see a pic of it! It sounds like it might be the same kind of press (letterpress) my father had. Well, there were two OLD ones. One of them had a part that looked like a man's body and made sounds that could almost be interpreted as words every time it moved forward to imprint the paper. I can still hear that sound... The other was an old hand-fed press with a flat round plate where you placed the paper...sheet by sheet, by hand. I wonder if they are still in operation.

Nothing like the smell of ink and the sound of presses. :)
 
well, i dont have those type of headaches but i known what your going though, i have cronic headaches almost everyday.
 
PAK..............pics taken.................DSL installed at home...............T-minus 35 minutes till im off work and can do something with them :grin: ......................will prolly have new pics of my tiny frogs as well, they got a new home this weekend............
 
Can't you just run a bunch of chief ribbons at a time and be done for the next few decades? Unless you enjoy the exercise.
 
will show yah shortly but quick answer they have dates on them.......................
 
They wouldn't want it to be too simple. Of course, if it were someone else would probably do it for less. But without the same pride of craftsmanship you enjoy each time you lift and then re-set 70 lbs to change Chief to Assistant Chief. Maybe that's where communism could have a competitive advantage. 500 ribbons each saying Comrade. Unless making ribbon wasn't part of the five year industrial plan.
 
heres the press
IMG_0474.jpg


here is the form with a pen for size referance
IMG_0477.jpg


another of the form
IMG_0478.jpg


a look down into the bowls with the ribbon holder
IMG_0479.jpg


where the comes up onto printing area.............forgot to get a shot of it making an impression
IMG_0476.jpg


heres the "final product" sorta............these were mistakes but give yah an idea
IMG_0482.jpg



here is a 56 year old press i use all the time i actually like using this one
IMG_0480.jpg


and here is a shot of the "newer presses" which are still around 30 years old
IMG_0481.jpg


and some frog pics, both of the same frog (dendrobates imitator)
IMG_0484.jpg


and there tank
IMG_0486.jpg
 
  • #11
Lol, I love it!

Where else will you find pictures of old printing presses followed by dart frogs?

It seems like you could just print on the ribbon material like... with a printer.
 
  • #12
i would LOVE to see you show me a printer that could..........alot of printers wont run glossy stock let alone what amounts to cloth
 
  • #13
Well... there's this one.

http://www.elsen-machinery.be/ribbon_printers.html

Lol, to me a ribbon is a ribbon but maybe you're looking for something different.

For each 12 inch ribbon you want that's 3 second and I think 500 ribbons would take like 25 minutes.

It says it works with 100% silk ribbon, but that doesn't mean it wont print on other ribbon materials such as the popular.... woven ribbon fiber.
 
  • #14
thought yah ment a regulat printer...............thats cool.............not sure if its 675 Euros cool though :grin:
 
  • #15
Lol, no I meant any printer. I didn't know there was a difference between printers until I looked up "ribbon printer" lol

Wonder how much the people who sponsor Red Ribbon Week would charge lol.
 
  • #16
A long time ago (~1980) I worked for an Easter Seals sheltered workshop and we had one ancient and one old press with a couple guys who could operate them. One of the guys left for a better paying job at an insurance company (a job probably out-sourced long ago). He operated a sleeker press there, surrounded by lots of others doing the same, but felt more like a cog than the craftsman he used to be. Not many people get to do what you do anymore.
 
  • #17
there is a working museum over in Helena and the guy who owns it has alot of these old presses........he still prints on them and last i knew was busier than i am.........apparently its become sorta popular to have wedding invitations and such printed on old letter presses like the one above........cant imagine what he charges cause the amount of time it would take to lay one out is unreal compared to the computer..................could prolly have 500 invitations printed off about as fast as it would take for some one who really knows what they are doing(i only sorta know what im doing with these) to set up a form let alone hand feed them through some of those presses
 
  • #18
hey PAK..........................was bored this morning and caught up with work so i scraped about 10 pounds of dust and grime off of the press..........still not even half way done with that part but it looks alot better............i oiled the hell out of it ant its prolly running smoother than it has in 20 years......................now i need someone to show me how to run the thing right..........wish i had a digital video camera cause watching this thing run is just awe inspiring..............its like a Rube Goldberg invention...........
 
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