The Story of the Letterpress.
Leslie
I have resisted writing about this up until now, because quite honestly I did not want to make my blog a winge fest. I had hoped this weekend I would be writing about my new Adana 8 x 5 press which was going to be the start of my Letterpress adventure. I am writing about my new Adana, except it's more a nightmare than an adventure.
After missing out on several presses on Ebay, I ordered a refurbished Adana 8x5 last Sept from someone in the UK. Then the shenanigans began. I was supposed to get the press within a month and this did not happen, a catalogue of excuses ensued and promises of the press being sent etc etc. After an ultimatum at my end the press started to make its way from the UK to Australia.
A week of obsessive FedEx tracking later, it arrived on my doorstep! I rushed home last night from work, excited to see the press that I have been patiently waiting for. I moved it to its new home and was a little concerned that the box seemed a little worse for wear. I opened it and removed the poorly wrapped press to find that it had been badly damaged and it doesn't function as it should. In fact it does not function at all.
This is what my press should look like, the one shown below is a presses one of my fave letterpress bloggers, Small Caps .
Adana 8 x 5 Press - Photo from small caps
A couple of photos below show that this is what mine is like at the moment, the right side has been pushed in as you can see and it now does not move up and down because its hitting the section where the plate or type would be. The rollers etc are not installed but you can see on the left side they way it should be. Unfortunately the damaged part is cast metal and not so easy to bend back into shape. The supplier is going to check what he has as spare parts but not sure what's going to happen there.
The photo above shows the rod which attaches to the rollers has also been bent. A little easier to fix.
So for now I have to wait to see what FedEx will do regarding the damage, and hope that I can replace the damaged parts.
Sigh........
After missing out on several presses on Ebay, I ordered a refurbished Adana 8x5 last Sept from someone in the UK. Then the shenanigans began. I was supposed to get the press within a month and this did not happen, a catalogue of excuses ensued and promises of the press being sent etc etc. After an ultimatum at my end the press started to make its way from the UK to Australia.
A week of obsessive FedEx tracking later, it arrived on my doorstep! I rushed home last night from work, excited to see the press that I have been patiently waiting for. I moved it to its new home and was a little concerned that the box seemed a little worse for wear. I opened it and removed the poorly wrapped press to find that it had been badly damaged and it doesn't function as it should. In fact it does not function at all.
This is what my press should look like, the one shown below is a presses one of my fave letterpress bloggers, Small Caps .
Adana 8 x 5 Press - Photo from small capsThe photo above shows the rod which attaches to the rollers has also been bent. A little easier to fix.So for now I have to wait to see what FedEx will do regarding the damage, and hope that I can replace the damaged parts.
Sigh........