Bookbinding – Swift Gluing Machine Modification (24 inch model)
January 12, 2012 by admin
Filed under Bookbinding
Article by Richard Norman
About 6 years ago a company called J.M.Campbell of Glasgow England went out of business.
They were the manufacturer of Swift gluing machines.
Those experienced among you will need no introduction to the swift whole surface cold gluing machine.
The company made a whole range of gluing machinery, but they are chiefly remembered for their whole surface gluing machines.
These machines came in a variety of widths, from 6 inch to 24 inch, either desk mounted or on a custom stand with castors.
We had three of these machines at one stage, one was a 1952 model which had alloy glue troughs, the others rather later were all made of brass and were in my eyes lovely machines, very low tech and easy to repair.
The only problem with them from my point of view was the noise they made, this may have been fixed on very late models, but ours were all old machines and probably some of the noise they made were due to wear of components, now that is being kind to the machines.
The gluing rollers, made of brass, sat one on top of the other, were about 2.5 inches in diameter and though covered in glue when running, which did cut the noise down a little, still made a certain amount of noise.
By far the greatest racket came from the top two gripping rollers; these sat one on top of the other and were made of knurled brass, these rollers served to grip the material as it was fed in to the machine.
One of my assistants kept complaining about the noise, it was he who suggested we take the two gripping rollers, and get them turned down and then coated with some form of hard rubber.
We went to a company who re-covered printing rollers and they charged us about £130.00 for the job.
The difference in noise was dramatic; you could talk without raising your voice.
So if you have a Swift which makes too much noise for your liking, do as we did and get those two gripping rollers turned down about 1/8th of an inch and coated with dense rubber to bring the roller up to its original width.
By Richard Norman
For twenty five years I ran a system of craft workshops in Somerset, England.
In 1995 the workshops were nominated a National Living Treasure, for their contribution to the Arts.
Visit my website at the above address.
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Chris Tyrrell writes for Just Trade, who work closely with third world manufacturers in order to achieve fair trade status. Visit the website for more details.
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