It was winter time, i was getting ready to set up olive -our now 120 years old vintage letterpress circa 1904, everything was going as part of the usual process, cleaning her up from being under the cover, settin up the rollers, plate, checking for placement, impression depth and finally inking of the plate, I had my paper and olive was ready or so I thought!

we got to about 15% of the job when I heard a snap and watched as my 2nd leather belt came flying of the wheel! thankfully I was alone in my garage and when i have the kids around they know to stand clear of the press, it is important to let others around you know the safety rules with any kind of equipment, specially when it comes to large machinery like my olive.

I was stressed! i mean… this job had to be completed in full in one week and i still needed to tend to other designs so this was not the thing i was needing, this was the second leather belt, my press came with one and i was able to mend it myself but it was not perfect as it keep sliding of the wheel, it wasn’t the tension it was the belt being brittle and old, so i walked away thinking i was doomed and i started to do research for leather and rubber belts but I didn’t have any luck.

see.. the thing with these older, gorgeous pieces or art and pure cast iron is that parts are hard to find, there is a lot of make shift prep and you pretty much have to know it as a member of your family in order to create something that would work with it, so it takes patience, ingenuity and hands on and a husband who is willing to get his hands dirty with you and search like a crazy nut for solutions, that is love! my husband/head of production nick loves to thinker with machines so i am super lucky to have him.

at this point I had already reached out to other letterpress shops in case i wasn’t able to get olive back in working condition but we were narrowing down options. Nick found a car pulley that we could attach to the existing motor and a rubber belt long enough to fit the serpentine pulley, he also customized the pulley further by filling a custom notch by hand, he overnighted the pulley and picked up the belt on his way home. he is a man of action and its one of the things i love about him!

he worked on it for a few hours, lots of banging, hammering and fitting, it was time to put our idea together and to our delight it worked perfectly! olive was back and i was so relieved, i didn’t want to have to go to another shop to print these, you see…i find joy in this process and i think i was not ready to let go so if you love something keep trying, don’t give up and surround yourself with people that will support you in every way.

its been a month, i was able to finish printing, production and final assembly of this custom suite, i was able to deliver two weeks earlier actually so i am glad i went through this, because i realize the beauty in it, lessons were learned and bonds were made stronger. Olive runs more perfectly that she ever has before and will be around longer than i will.

I would say we figured out what our machine needed by getting to know the machine, not all machines are the same.

we did what worked best for us with the timeframe we had, so this exact method might not work for yours but i share in hopes in helps you understand and troubleshoot based on your machine and its needs.

take care of what you love and it will take care of you