Blew $85 on a cheap book press off Etsy and the threads stripped on my second book
I know this is on me for trying to save a buck but I want to warn people before they make the same mistake. Back in March I was casing in a batch of 5 journals for a spring craft fair here in Boise and my old wooden press finally gave out, so I grabbed one of those shiny blue metal presses off Etsy for $85 because it had like 400 good reviews. The thing showed up in a week and felt light but I figured it was fine. Second book in, I cranked it down and heard a pop, and the threaded rod just spun loose in the nut. The threads had totally stripped out. The listing said it could do 2 inches of text block and I was only pressing maybe 3/4 of an inch. I emailed the seller and they offered me a $15 refund, which is basically nothing when you count the ruined endpapers and the paste I wasted. I ended up driving to a guy in Nampa who welds and he fixed it for $40 with a real bolt setup, so now I'm into this dumb press for $125 anyway. Has anyone found a press under $200 that doesn't fold the minute you put real pressure on it? I keep seeing the cast iron ones but I don't want to get burned twice.