Bob Conant wrote:

> ... it will still stall near the end of fat rolls ... I would be
> interested to hear anyone else's experiences with foot pumped Ampico

I had such problems with my foot pumped Ampico.  Apart from mechanical
issues like available wind motor power and friction losses, I found the
problems were often in the roll itself, partly caused by my reduction of
the upper spool brake friction to try to overcome the other problems.

Often what I had thought was a stalled roll was in fact the loose turns
on the take-up spool tightening up.  The spool was still turning smoothly
but the paper was stopping or jerky at the end of a big roll.  As always,
a compromise is needed but some old rolls give more trouble, probably due
to more friction between turns of paper.

Karl Ellison suggests tightening the adjustable left spool flange to
reduce paper damage.  This is more practical than my untried suggestion
of a spacer just for rewind.  I have used his technique previously on
rolls that had "naturally" tighter flanges but it can close up again if
the friction isn't sufficient.  I can see no problem with the method if
the flange can be properly closed up after rewind.

If the paper edges are already very soft, this might be a problem and it
might not help much if the right edge has the main damage.  Tapping
against the right flange to locate the paper involves pressure on the
left end and some of the innermost paper turns might not shift across
fully.  With care it should work in most cases.

Disabling the auto-rewind is a good idea to avoid a dash to stop the
tearing sounds.  I have also successfully used hand friction on the right
spool flange to slow down the rewind speed.    Anything that helps
protect old rolls is worth a try.

Cheers,

Darrell Clarke