Tuesday, December 2, 2008

New press arrived

After a long wait, the new Chandler & Price 10 x 15" platen press arrived this afternoon.

The driver mentioned hearing a thump during the trip, which made my heart beat double time when he told me. We opened up the back to find that the press had been incorrectly placed on the pallet by the drivers in Melbourne, and as a result, its two front feet had dropped between the wood slats onto the floor of the truck. It was originally on skids, but the Melbourne blokes had taken them off for some reason. The packing of the entire delivery (3 crates worth) was done so poorly, I'm surprised there's no obvious damage. Moving the press with the pallet jack was a little hairy because the press was now leaning on a tilt and slats had broken off the pallet. But the delivery guys were excellent, and moved the press into its temporary position in the new studio. I'll be calling the operations manager of the transport company tomorrow to let him know how unhappy I am with the packing, and that if I find any damage to the press, they'll be paying for it.


You can see in these photos how the front feet have slipped down.
The good news is that the press looks good, and it's in much better condition than I thought. Very happy! I'll get some better photos once we finish moving house.

3 comments:

Shop Boy said...

Congratulations on the press, Lou!

Too bad about the bungled move. It's insane. These fellas see a big hunk of metal and decide it's unbreakable, so what the heck? Just chuck it on the truck. Hope all's well. And I'm glad you've found time to post some more.

Justin Miller said...

Glad to hear everything arrived safely. I don't envy you the stress of having someone else move your press. How did you sleep at night?

Poppy Letterpress said...

Thanks Shop Boy and Justin. Oh, the anxiety before the press arrived was too much! Not sure how I slept really! And I spent the whole morning telling myself 'these guys are pros, there's no need to worry so much'. To have them tell me it dropped in the truck - that didn't help!

I have my other press to move in a little over a week, but I'll be organising this one myself.