Gear pullers, hydraulic pullers and bearing pullers will remove most parts from a press, but in some cases these tools won’t fit or are very awkward to use.

Slide hammers work great but have to be bolted on in most cases. Figure 1 shows a pair of locking pliers with a slide hammer attached. To make this handy tool, get a pair of locking pliers, a half-inch steel rod 18 inches long, a half-inch nut and a piece of 1-1/2-inch-by-4-inch round steel.

Fig. 1

The first step to make this device is to grind a taper on one end of the half-inch steel rod and then weld the rod to the locking pliers.

Next, center drill the 1-1/2-inch round steel and slide it on the half-inch rod. Finally, drill through the half-inch nut with a half-inch drill bit so that the nut will fit snugly on the half-inch rod. Weld the nut to the end of the half-inch rod and you’re done.

Make your own

Design your own puller. Locking pliers come in a variety of styles, any of which may suit your needs better than the one I just described. The puller can be used to remove almost anything from a press that you can grasp, including hand wheels, brackets, locking collars or other stubborn items.

Most of the pressrooms I have visited in the past had a bar that had a large half moon on one end and a smaller one on the other.

This tool is called a feather key bar and is meant to remove feather keys (see figure 2).


Fig. 2

What is a feather key? It is a square key that was tapered slightly on one edge and looked sort of like a railroad spike. The purpose of the feather key was to lock a gear to a shaft. When the key was pulled, however, it allowed easy removal of the gear. The key bar is very useful in tight areas when you have to remove specific parts from a press quickly.

If you don’t have a feather key, you can make one. A local machine shop can fabricate the tool easily using a plasma cutter. Another alternative is a nail bar. These nail bars are very useful if you have to remove ink fountain cylinders from a Community press manufactured by Goss (see figure 3).

Fig 3

Tough to remove support pins

Support pins can be very difficult to remove from a press frame. The pins can be removed with a collet set (see figure 4).

Fig 4

The collet set is normally used to support end-mill bits in a milling machine. The collet holder is threaded on one end, which will accept a threaded rod. The assembly of the pin-puller is similar to constructing a locking-pliers puller.

To pull a pin, place the collet in the collet holder and you’re ready to pull. If a pin puller or collet set is not available, drill and thread the pin you want to remove. Once this procedure has been completed, a threaded rod/slide hammer assembly can be added to the pin for removal.

Frank Bourlon has more than 30 years’ experience in the newspaper industry. He is the executive and training director for the Newspaper Production & Research Center. He can be reached at 405.524.7774 or via e-mail at fbourlon@np-rc.org.