Running the Windmill -The 1953 Heidelberg Windmill

Alan Runfeldt of the Excelsior Press runs a simple numbering job on the 1953 Heidelberg Windmill Platen Press. "That's all there is to it." (well, there is a bit more to setting up doing makeready and setting the feed and all, but that will have to be in another video..."

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Heidelberg
• Windmill
• Auto
• Feed
• Platen
• Press
• Letterpress
• Excelsior

[topher11372]

& why the flags?

[NoDeadlines]

@topher11372 - Flags? you mean in the stack? Different orders, reset numbers. Same form position, different sets and different numbering sequences. This job is a lot of short runs of essentially the same form - but the numbers are reset for each order. I keep them separated in the delivery using small tags or flags in the stack.

- Al

[topher11372]

pretty confident of the numbering heads!!!

[NoDeadlines]

@topher11372 - Yeah. I am. Of course, I service them regularly and keep them clean and well lubicated. I've been running this job for 35 years and learned long ago that taking good care of the numbering machines pays off in the long run.

Thanks, Alan

[boilerbob7]

I remember those. You could run hairline register on a business card LOL

[NoDeadlines]

@boilerbob7 - Bob - Yup. You stil can - and I still do - dead nuts register on a 2 x 3 1/2" business card using the Nickel Guides... I recently ran a few thousand 2"x5" 60# coated pre-printed labels (I was imprinting bar codes in black) through this press - no problem.

[pheenix42]

Watch your head, of course...friend of mine got smacked by one of the arms because he wasn't paying attention! XD

[TheJimbarnes]

I still have the type.

[TheJimbarnes]

Big smiles!! When I was a child in the 60s till 1972 my father had a side business. This is one of the presses he had.I never was able to set it up but I was allowed to run jobs on it. I was 12 and 13 when dad let me do this. Numbering was one of the jobs I would do. When I was very young my child imagination saw this machine as the mechanical man. Thank you so very much for the memory!!

[captnshaw]

Used often and well lubricated. That's Zen Obi Wan.

[danolectro]

Great to see someone who can actually run a windmill on YouTube. Put a 20000 piece numbering run on mine today.....

[jdmdrift]

this machine is incredible! I remember first seeing one of these in the Goonies movie where they were printing counterfeits lol. i cant imagine what it would cost to buy/maintain one of these but i would love to have one.