For nearly a year, we poured ourselves into our second Pearl press. Stripping, sanding, priming, painting, repainting, sourcing parts. This weekend, all the parts were in. The brand new rollers. An original crank. A new connecting rod. Everything was in our hands. Saturday night, our press was finished. Done.

Only, if you follow us on twitter, you know those words have a much different meaning than we could have ever dreamed.

After the last bolt was in place, we added packing, put on a plate and spun the wheel. On about the third spin, there was a deep + loud pop. Kacey slowly spun the wheel again inspecting the mechanics of the press. He took a look at the paper it had just printed. The impression wasn’t even. He looked on the side of the press and there it was. A crack clean down the body of the press.

All of that hard work. All of the money. Gone. The crack too significant and beyond repair. And we never saw it coming. It spun fine all along. Saturday night, though, adding the packing and the pressure of the plate just did it in. We are heartbroken.

It’s finished. Done.

So, we’re restoring our second new-to-us Pearl Press. If you recall, we’ve cleaned, stripped, sanded, primed and painted it with a gleaming coat of black paint. After doing so, we realized it was way too glossy, especially compared to our first Pearl Press. Knowing that they’d be side by side in our studio, we decided to repaint it with a semi-gloss paint. Kacey spent a few weekends repainting the press and this weekend we finally got it reassembled and in our studio! So exciting. We have a few more parts to source before it’s going to be fully up and running. We need to find or fab parts to convert it from a motor operated to a treadle operated press. We’re also going to be making new feeder boards. Plus, we’re waiting on new rollers, cores + trucks but they’re already ordered. Oh, we’re so, so close!

one – original / two – primed / three – gloss paint / four – semi-gloss paint