Special thanks to Woodcraft for their support of our show!
A Shipping Disaster
Book conservator Noah Smutz found a vintage book press at auction, a perfect addition to his shop.Built in 1905 by Hickok Manufacturing, it’s ideal for preserving rare books, Bibles, and manuscripts. Unfortunately, the press didn’t survive shipping.
It arrived with severe damage. The press had tipped over in transit, cracking the wooden frame at multiple joints and compromising the structure. The impact shattered the mortise and tenon joints and broke several cast iron components, including the handwheel. Considering a press like this can generate thousands of pounds of force, a simple repair wasn’t going to be enough.
That’s when the project shifted from a repair to a full book press rebuild.
The Rebuild
Instead of patching the damaged frame, we rebuilt the wooden structure from scratch while preserving as much of the original hardware as possible.
The new frame was made from hard maple, laminated from thick stock to achieve the necessary strength and mass. From there, the build focused on robust joinery, including large mortise and tenon joints and drawbored pegs, all carefully fitted to work with the original cast iron parts.
We made a few subtle design improvements along the way, raising the lower rail and lowering the top crossmember slightly to better suit Noah’s workflow. These changes reduce the need for blocking during use and improve the press’s overall stability.
With the frame complete, the original components were cleaned, repaired, and reinstalled. The goal wasn’t to make the press look brand new, but to give it another century of useful life while respecting its history.
Delivery
Final assembly took place in Noah’s shop in St. Louis, where the book press rebuild finally came together. Seeing it back in service, pressing newly restored books, was the perfect reminder of what this project was really about.
This wasn’t just a rebuild. It was a chance to preserve a tool that plays a small but important role in preserving history itself.
Links
- Hybrid Woodworking Book
- Carbon Method Carbon Coat Kit
- Bench Nuts
- Carbon Coating Prep Kit
- Surfprep 3×4 Electric Ray Sander (Save 10% with code TWW)
- BackSide Sandpaper
The post This 120-Year-Old Book Press Was Destroyed… So I Rebuilt It appeared first on The Wood Whisperer.
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