Know any one who can fix a Fibar semi auto press?

[newbiescreenprinter]

Anybody here, or anybody know someone that can tune up an old Filbar press? A friend of mine got pretty good size one, and it operates, but we need help getting it set up so that the floodbar floods correctly, and the squeegee pushes down firmly to transfer an impression to the paper.

The Filbar presses are bare bones no frills presses from the 80's.

Pros:
They are cheep
If you can get one running, you can print faster than by hand

Cons:
Little or no parts availability
No micro registration
The squeegee uses the weight of the rolling carriage to apply pressure on the screen, so some people have had to add weights to get it to push down hard enough.
They are old and were used heavily long ago, and most were probably pretty well used up.

Made my own squeegee holder, but had to drill higher holes in the floodbar just to get it the floodbar close to the screen on the way up.

If there is an absolute genius for these things out there, I would be willing to fly in and pay that person to tune it up and get it printing.

[Quinine]

I know a guy who does what you're talking about - goes around the country setting up / repairing screen printing presses, training people in on them, etc. He keeps pretty busy w/ it so I dont' know what his availability is like right now but he helped us set up a press at our shop recently. He kicks ass. Hit me up w/ a PM that includes your contact information and I can get him in touch w/ you and you guys can take it from there.

[kylewbaker]

HELP!

I was offered a Filbar semi auto today if I could transport it by Wednesday. Don't know model. Approximately 30" x 40". It was used by an artist until he died at some point and had been 'sealed up' (not exactly sure what that means) in a basement since 1980. It was carefully taken apart and moved into storage a few years ago.

How much dough might I expect to spend reassembling this thing? I'd help as much as possible, if that's even possible.

I've read up what I can on this site and others re: Filbars (Andy's quote below from another thread). I can't test it because it's disassembled.

They are an older mechanical style American made semi auto printing press. I don't think the company is in biz anymore, but there are/were thousands of these presses in older sign shops and graphic printshops.

If it works (plug it in with no squeegee or frame and see if it cycles without making any rude noises) It can be made to work. If the table top is trashed, you could easily make a new one.

If it is not able to cycle or is extremly jerky, clunky or the controls or adjusters are broken, you might be further ahead giving it a pass. Unless you are mechanically minded and know a welder/fabricator.

They were never a super accurate press, and not a good solution if you are wanting to print high end process work because of the lack of controls and precision adjusters, but were a mainstay of many shops. The design is from the 1950's, one of the early attempts to mechanize screenprinting, and they never really got modern.

It's probably noteworthy that getting this thing won't be "easy" but I think it'll be about as easy as it could be -- it's on wheels, largely taken apart, not far down the road, in a garage, I can easily rent a big box truck with a hydraulic lift to get it and bring it to my building's loading dock and then into a large service elevator. (On Friday Steve helped me do exactly this picking up a big exposure table and some other stuff -- the lift was overkill but awesome.)

Finally the person who offered it to me (and took it apart) cataloged the process with a bunch of photos...

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[Quinine]

See the above note. Send me a PM if you are interested.

[kylewbaker]

Here are awful photos:

[steve w]

Dan Crosshair has one, so you could take pics for reference.
It's not rocket surgery. Snag it. We'll figure it out.

[sixtybones]

Here is one I just found on CL in Chicago:
large silkscreen auto-press machine

I couldn't pick it up by wed, so I don't know if any of you would be interested. Possibly the same one?

[kylewbaker]

That's the one.

[sixtybones]

Then nevermind, it is spoken for.