Press moving day
Press moving 3: guillotine through the yard, originally uploaded by artnoose.
With a sunny, summery week, of course the day of press moving is the day that it rains. Truth be told, all the other times I've moved the press it has snowed, although I'm not sure rain is a step up from snow. Warmer, but wetter. At least we had tarps, and it never really poured.
The challenge for today was getting the letterpress and guillotine UP the three steps out of the basement. My friend JK constructed a harness for this purpose so that many people could be pulling at the same time. This was an amazing innovation in my press-moving experience. Normally only around four people can fit around the machine at once, which limits how much force the team can exert. With the harness, several people could pull all at once in one long line. This was a serious improvement.
We did the move in stages, first by bringing each machine up the ramp into the yard, then shimmying each machine down to the alley, and then working them up the ramp into the trailer. As always, I rented a 5'x9' U-haul trailer with ramp. If you have to move a press, this is a key pro-tip.
The hardest part of the day was getting the letterpress up the ramp. The wood skids that the letterpress and guillotine are mounted to are the ones that came with them when I got them a few years ago. They are nearly shot, and I definitely have to use something different the next time I have to move them. The letterpress is also top-heavy, and there is very real danger of tipping.
Moving everything into the new house was a little easier because xwx was able to expertly maneuver the trailer backward so close to the back door of the house that we barely had to work the machines through the yard at all. Also, everything just had to go up one step into the house.
The total time was about five hours, and that included a short pizza break. Afterwards, xwx said he was surprised I wasn't barking orders a little more. I confessed that the team had been so competent that honestly I didn't really feel the need to.
Over the next month or so, I'll have to clear out more space and start putting everything back together. (A few parts had to come off the machines to fit them through doorways and lighten them a little.)
Right now though, I'm concentrating on packing up my personal belongings so I can move myself and the cat in the next few days. And then I'll have a new address!