The Gallery — September 2009
You've got to be kidding...
If you've followed the last few months of gallery posts you'll know that the equipment just seems to be falling from the sky, and in September it poured. An email from a local printer arrived with the news of a bunch of gear at a monastery outside of Armstrong, and after a week or so of communications between myself, Sister Ann at St Joseph's Monastery, and another interested party, I spent a few days in an open shed sorting and preparing the loot for transport.
Timeline...
The Armstrong loot piled high. All you can see here is the 10" × 15" C&P on the right and the Challenge tabletop press on the left, but there was plenty more hiding under and behind all of this...
On Saturday, September 5, kevin mcpherson, Jake Kennedy (both instructors at Okanagan College and good friends), Monika Gordon, Amanda Nemeth (both students of mine), Amanda's boyfriend Marcus and I headed out to the monastery with a 14ft U-Haul, a palette-jack, and a stupid sense of enthusiasm. Over the course of 4 hours we managed to load all of the following: a full-sized C&P paper trimmer (approx. 1500lbs), an 8" × 12" Westman & Baker jobber (about 1000lbs), a Challenge proofing press (an easy 300lbs), a composing table with steel top (about 800lbs), a single-column oak 2/3 type cabinet, and a beautiful triple column cabinet (one column of 2/3 drawers, a middle column of spacing/leading drawers, and the third column of full California cases). The larger 10" × 15" C&P seen above had to be left behind for the moment, as there was no way we could get it up onto the 3ft deck of the U-Haul, but I'll be back for it soon...
You can see the Challenge proof press at bottom left, the single column cabinet with the cardboard box on top of it, and the spindle for the C&P trimmer at top right...
On the left is the Westman & Baker, with an 8" × 12" C&P Oldstyle beside it; the latter was badly damaged (broken drive shaft, broken foot, cracked frame) and went to another party who wanted it for parts ...
The C&P trimmer...
Hauling the trimmer out on some very uneven ground...
For the time being, all of this stuff is up at the new print shop I'm putting together at the college, but eventually, once things are cleaned up, I'll swap out the trimmer I have here in the shop for the C&P, and will bring home the Westman & Baker. I've just finished cleaning and staining the single column cabinet, which I'll move into the shop next week. More photos will come as things progress, but needless to say this was an amazing find, including some of the goodies shown below.
