Spent 6 hours fighting one book press screw and I want to scream

So last Saturday I was finishing a rebind on a 1930s poetry collection, nothing fancy, just a new spine and some corner repairs. I clamped it in my old cast iron press and the screw would not budge past a quarter turn, no matter how much I leaned on it. I figured it was just stiff so I hit it with some oil and waited an hour, still stuck. Then I tried a cheater bar and heard a little crack that scared me half to death. Turns out a tiny piece of dried glue had jammed down in the threads, probably from a project back in March that I never cleaned up. It took me 6 hours total, plus a trip to the hardware store in Bend for a brass brush and a thread file, before I finally got that thing spinning smooth again. I felt so dumb because I basically caused it myself, but I also learned to check my threads after every glue job now. What do you all use to keep your press screws clean, or am I the only one who neglects them?

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sandra_black23d ago

Did you take the screw all the way out or just clean it while it was still in the press? I always wonder if I'm missing junk deeper in the threads when I just brush the visible part. Also how often do you actually re-oil yours, like every project or just when it starts feeling rough?

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