I ended up doing another restoration project that tested every bit of my mettle, skills, and resolve: Here’s my restored Kingsley Hot Stamping Press, originally from the 1930s!
I was excited to pick this up at the Los Angeles Printers Fair... until I realized the extent of rust, water damage, faulty wiring, and asbestos insulation. But after fifteen days of nearly daily work, I’m really proud of the result!
I vastly underestimated the number of interior parts, and the sheer complexity of every step of this ambitious project, and I learned a lot along the way. I hope that a hundred years from now, the next and next and next owner appreciate all the effort I put into this restoration from end-to-end, including finding ways to make it my own, such as by selecting a fun teal cloth covered electrical cable rather than a mottled brown one.
I learned a lot along the way for sure, but in particular I am proud of how well I was able to match the wrinkled texture on the original high temperature paint, and that I was able to salvage the maple base with some TLC.
What a thrill to be out the other side of this speed run at last, and with something so cool to show for it!
This was a full and complete tear down and rebuilt from the bottom up, involving disassembly, chemical stripping, cleaning, sanding, repainting, retexturing, baking, resealing, woodworking, filling planing, staining, electrical, reassembly (so many tiny parts!) and more. Here are some before and afters, and shoutout to the California @renegadeguild Discord server for cheering me on. :)
Since this is hardly a Youtube repository of restoration walkthroughs, I'm going to attach as many images as Tumblr will let me (which is apparently 30!) to this post and provide a brief overview of my approach. If you're interested in any gritty details, just let me know and I'm happy to provide them, but as most of you folks are unlikely to be trying to recreate this project on your own, I suspect a summary of the adventure is a better intended approach. :)
So a hot foil stamping press is one of those things most people have never seen in the present day, and fewer yet have any real reason to own. The basic idea is you have a device that heats up metal plates that you then "press" into paper, wood, leather, cloth, etc. to create an embossed impression, or an embossed impression that is filled with either foil or real metal foil.
Way back, these presses were used in the 1930s through about the 1980s in order to customize things like business cards, holiday cards, pencils, pens, luggage tags, books and bibles, and that sort of thing. So if you've seen a luggage tag with a monogram? It was likely made with a hot foil stamper.
Truth to be told? I wasn't really keeping my eye out for one myself. Refurbished and new ones go for around $2-3k for just the base unit, and that's not even including all the type, spacers, and accessories you need to use it. I viewed it firmly in the camp of "I'm just beginning my bookbinding and tangential creative journey. Maybe I'll find a used one down the road or something after I start working with leather in a few years." I also knew I didn't want a large machine that is close to 100 pounds and would take up a lot of space in my workshop, so I felt like I was safe from any type of temptation.
...Then I ended up standing in front of one at the Los Angeles Printers Fair with friends and fellow guildmembers from the bookbinding community:
This here... they wanted $450 for not only an adorable (and small!) hot foil stamping press, but for a load of accessories. A number of my guildmates serious considered it, but then they Uno-Reversed it on me and convinced me to see if they'd take a lower offer.
And thus, I bought a Kingsley, 6 font types (which usually go for about $100-$300 each), and a load of accessories for a mere $350!
Now this was an incredible deal, but I didn't know enough about these things to realize the condition of the Kingsley itself. I was told it worked and was from the 1980s (yay!), but upon further research, I realize it was manufactured closer to the 1930s, and had a lot of rust and water damage.
Someone with a lot less mettle probably would have just resold everything as-is on eBay for a profit, but I told myself maybe I could just replace the electrical and that would be enough?
Yeah, that didn't look safe... The last thing I wanted to do was to burn down my house. And oh shit, was that asbestos? Yep....
Even still, I tested the press from afar, and yep, it heated up, but I was conflicted with how to proceed and pinged a few people who all agreed the electrical should be replaced. Oof!
Now at this point, I was telling myself if it was just the electrical, maybe this wouldn't be a big project?
As I started to disassemble it, I realized just how water damaged and rusty it really was, and just how many parts there were!
This wasn't just something that needed a little cleaning and TLC.
No: I was in over my head and rapidly descending down the rabbit hole...
I didn't have any idea how this all went together and there were hundreds of parts, so I started making little videos of myself to keep track of how they all went together, and I divided them into baggies to keep the parts in some resemblance of order.
And eventually, I got everything apart! I wasn't necessarily convinced I could put everything back together, but that would be a problem for future-me. ;)
Looking at the inside of the Kingsley also reaffirmed that I absolutely needed to replace the electrical.
From there, I degreased each part individually, and then soaked them in Evapo-Rust for three days. Each day, I would clean the pieces further to try to remove all the rust and corrosion. Trying to keep these tiny pieces organized was a very particular struggle...
Evapo-Rust is fantastic stuff, and I learned a lot from using it! It's supposed to be safe on most paint and finishes, and so I opted to also sink the main assembly as well. I put a plastic mesh along the bottom so that the chemical would be able to have access to the base of the Kingsley too:
This phase was very, very time intensive. It was also very difficult to keep all the tiny parts organized and to make sure I was treating all of the metal and parts respectfully. Iron and steel needed one thing, zinc and chrome-plated another, aluminum something else, and the same went for plastics and wood (wood shouldn't be put in Evapo-Rust).
But eventually, the chemical stripping did it's thing and I removed each piece from its yellowish bath and quickly washed and dried it before hitting it with a spray called "Rust Block." The reason you do this is that water and even air will re-oxidize bare parts quickly, so you want to prevent them from getting flash rust and having to start the process all over again.
Now generally, this approach worked, but there were some outliers. One issue I encountered is that while Evapo-Rust won't strip paint, if you have rust UNDER the paint, oh, it will strip that off too. :/
See all the silver along the back of the Kingsley and that box area on the right? Those are supposed to be covered in textured black paint. :/
The Kingsley also has 5 pieces of signage, and the paint failed on two of them, arugh!
Thus: I signed myself up for even MORE work...
From here, I masked the Kingsley and did a bunch of tests with different paints to try to find a way to mimic the really pretty, almost frost-like wrinkled pattern seen on Kingsleys, while also being mindful to use a paint that was rated for very high temperatures so it didn't peel or bubble.
There was a lot of trial and error and tests, but I was really thrilled by the results! VHT Wrinkle Plus 11 Ounce Black Spray Paint ended up being the closest match, and gave me the texture I was hoping for.
I will confess: I'm especially proud of how well I was able to match the wrinkled texture. :)
After waiting for it to dry for a few days, I then baked the whole thing at around 200 degrees F for about two hours. You do this to cure high temperature paints.
While that was running, I organized all the cleaned, dried, and sealed parts. So, so many parts. I had to treat them differently depending on what they were made with (iron, steel, aluminum, etc.), and if they were plated in zinc or chrome.
From here came a load of assembly and further sanding:
And then I sat down and tried to put it all back together... and I did! :) Making those sort little videos during the original disassembly really helped.
Along the way, I removed rivets, organized the type, and tried to hone-in on treating each little piece with intention. For instance: there was a piece that was originally coated in rubber that had long-since peeled off, so it got a brand new Plastic-Dip coating!
From here, we entered the woodworking phase of this project. The original maple board was stained, badly warped, and cracking apart at the seams:
So I ended up sanding it down and using a planar to try and level it out. Amid many rounds of sanding, I also patched in the gaps and cracks with Plastic Wood and kept on sanding.
On the side, we finally had a surgery session for the internal wiring with a friend who is a lot more confident and experienced with electrical than I am. It took... many hours. The biggest trick was just that it was so hard to thread the wires where we needed to at the petite scale of the Kingsley, but eventually we got there! It has a new heater as well.
Over the passing weeks I'd also learned that the model number of my Kingsley, was one no one has heard of. It's put together differently than most, and that made the reassembly that much more challenging since the wires had to thread through at weird angles in very, very confined spaces:
It felt like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel at last!
It felt like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel at last!
Fun fact: I debated how "authentic" I wanted this restoration to be, and eventually resolved that I wanted it to be my own considering how much time I was pouring into it. That meant that instead of a mottled brown cord, I went with teal. :) Making the color and style choice was fun, and I loved the twisted cord option the moment i laid eyes on it.
There's a load of steps here of more sanding (80->120->180->220 grit) and filling, but the base was looking SO much better!
And then I applied a "Summer Oak" Rustoleum wood stain. My goal here was to try to match the warmth and overall due of the round foil roll adapter on the front of the Kingsley. It was wild seeing how far it's come!
Then came many coats of oil-based polyrethane to seal the wood, and I made a little jig to put spacers on the underside corners of the base:
And then... I put it all together! Here are some before and after images. :)
Overall? This was an absolutely massive time sink for two weeks of my life, and while I wouldn't recommend the process for the average home user, I have such a remarkable sense of pride seeing what I was able to achieve end-to-end on this unexpected restoration and project. :)
Like any good tool, I'm curious to see what doors it might open for me creatively, and I hope you enjoyed this truncated, and unusual walkthrough!
As always, let me know if there are any steps you have questions about, since I definitely summarized a lot of the steps along the way!
