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Suggestions to save this ink disk

metron9

Aluminum
Joined
Oct 29, 2009
Location
Minnesota U.S.A.
I refinished an old ink disk (cast aluminum I think) to find lots of deep holes and a bad hole from the original casting. Anyone have a suggestion on what to use to refill these holes so I can re machine it and make it workable?

Lower right is a ridge you can see it needs a bit more sanding, I used a 3/4 6 flute finishing end mill to take off about 0.010 mil. Unless I can fill the holes it's no good and the little letterpress it goes on is already sold on ebay i think for like 1600 bucks. Without the ink plate it's no good.

These get very light usage some don't even get used and are just for show.
3400-ink-disk-lots-holes-fill.jpg
 
metron9 --

If that ink disc was on my press, and I wanted a better surface, I do believe that I'd 1) fill the bigger voids with JB Weld or PC 7, 2) make another facing cut after the epoxy is cured, 3) mix a new batch of epoxy to bond an aluminum sheet to the disc, and 4) make a final cleanup cut on the face and rim after the second batch of epoxy is cured.

John
 
Dicking about sould have been done before it was offered up for sale, no?:D

Got a lathe? Rotary table for the mill?

Set up the ink pad so you can whack 80 or so thou out of it, without running full out at the edges. Insert a plate of aluminum sheet into said hole, bond in place with epoxy, PRC, or whatever is your favorite way to bond aluminum together, then, when that is all secure, skim it flat again.

If you did a decent job of flush rivets, you could even rivet a new face plate in place.

That's what i got for fix ideas.

There is always the option of a new plate from stock. Some flat plate and a bit of the trim from that, to build up the mount on the back...


Good luck! That is one brutal casting!

I really do think inserting a plate into the face is the simplest fix. OK, simplest that looks like an original part.
If it has to look original, I think looking for a foundry that degasses their melts would be an idea! Lots of hobby guys that could do that in their shops, too.

Cheers
Trev
 
I had not thought of glewing an aluminum face on to it, thanks for the suggestion.

The thickness is only about .100 as the back has ribs so I can't take 80 thou off of it. The actual thickness does not matter though so I can just add face to it.

My brother sells lots of these things but i think this is the first ink disk that was this bad as they usually clean up well however the other ones I have cleaned up were cast iron, this was the first one I actually got nice little curly chips from. The cast iron was powder.

I had wondered if braising it might work and then facing it again.

I do have a 12 inch rotating table, dont have a motor on it yet though. My XLO rebuild is almost ready to run full CNC so I hope to be able to mill new disks like this very soon.



3401-back-ink-disk.jpg
 
OK, it looked thicker in the first picture. No reason for the number, except that it would have left a pretty thick slab after being faced off.

I've seen a couple of these presses run, but not to the point of seeing how they worked.

Yeah, if the plate is flat, you can scab a piece of aluminum plate on it directly, and clean up around the edges and face it flat however you so desire. I would see if I could find some 6061-t6 of around 50 or 80 thousandth thickness, that would probably work really well. Use good epoxy glue, or a adhesive formulated for metal to metal bonding. Or rivets.

Glue is like to be a better choice than anything involving fire, as it appears to be a die casting, and the alloy may be lower melting temperature than you estimate. Most die casting alloys are pretty much a PITA to weld, too, usually a high zinc content.

Cheers
Trev
 
Are you sure the thickness does not matter? In my dim memories of using manual presses with ink plates like that, the ink rollers were on a track so the thickness did matter.
 
Are you sure the thickness does not matter? In my dim memories of using manual presses with ink plates like that, the ink rollers were on a track so the thickness did matter.

It matters to some point but the rollers are on spring loaded arms. 50 thou is not going to be a problem. The distance from the bottom where the disk plugs in to the bottom edge needs to be a minimum to clear the top of the frame.

I will look for some aluminum stock and give it a try. I can take it down another 30 thou I think, I did make an aluminum plate to attach the disk too using 4 - 20-24 hex head bolts, i angled the heads (on my sb9 lathe) to match the edge so the bolts pinch the plate and hold it secure.

I tried to face it with my Bridgeport knee mill using the boring head with the full 6 1/2 inch swing but i still had chatter problems. 300 rpm at 3/4 IPM .005 doc so I used a 3/4 endmill at 2000 rpm and ran it faster. i only used a 4 1/2 x 1/2 inch for the plate I should have made it bigger at least to fit the 6" vice, that's why I had a tiny bit of overlap that shows up on those two ends.

I will post results if we decide to do it, no reason not to it's scrap now anyway.
 
Why does the back of the casting look so good and the front so bad? I have a feeling the voids were internal and has been faced down to what are now seeing now. I don't think a printing press company would have let something like that out of their plant.
 
Why does the back of the casting look so good and the front so bad? I have a feeling the voids were internal and has been faced down to what are now seeing now. I don't think a printing press company would have let something like that out of their plant.

This is from an old manual letterpress built in the 1800's i should have taken a picture of it before I took the .010 off, you could clearly see the big void as a depression but it had a little metal covering it. Someone else had tried to grind it down in a drill press and used a heavy wire brush and 80 grit sand paper or bigger it was a mess and totally unusable. heck if it were not for aesthetics simply filling the voids with epoxy and finishing would make it fully usable.

I think it goes on this model.

ADANA 5X3 LETTERPRESS KELSEY SIGWALT GOLDING C&P DIECUT EMBOSS MINT NEW ROLLERS | eBay
 
How about a piece of hot rolled blanchard ground and then screwed down with flat head screws? A spot of weld in the driving sockets of the screws, then file them flat.
 
Finished it using .060 6061 and jb weld
Turned out perfect.

3405-fixed-ink-disk-small-letterpress.jpg


Used live tool (rotozip) to take the edge down with a chamfer mill
and then used a little sanding drum to finish
some sandpaper and it's done.

2012-02-04 17.17.29.avi - YouTube

Thank's for the tips on how to do this. As they would say in the time of Spartacus, Gratitude's gentlemen.
 








 
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