For sale: 2x complete AD1202 + spareparts

[montalbano]

We got to make space, so I decided to let them go.
One of the two presses is still producing once in a while, so it has moulds mounted (high performance 140g, from the early 90's); the other one has no moulds, but it has been fully operational until 4-5 months ago.
Both of them come with their hydraulic unit.
Moulds have the outer 45° angle and their clamping rings are designed to meet that specification - just like any standard Alpha/Pheenix/Schaefer mould manufactured today or back then.
Plenty of available spareparts: cake formers, spare boards (CPU, I/O, C27), spare clamping rings, spare hydraulic pumps, full schematics, and original owner manuals from the late 70's.
No export outside the EU.
PM me for further details.

[mossboss]

Hey Hey Hey Selling your babies are you?? Ha

[montalbano]

Trying to, man... no need to enlarge capacity here, just optimize IMHO. Cutting and galvanics are still the head job.
But will keep 1 or 2 of the old Alphas as spare machines. We're still using them, particularly that press coming from B.K. and previously from Nottingham, you probably remember that press, to which we've replaced main seal, top ring, bearing, big allen screws (this time with the correct length!), etc.
BTW years ago we took those allen screws off the 1st time, and we found them THAT long ... that was the mistake ... I mean, someone (somewhere) had put them in like that. For sure, it wasn't Alpha Toolex.
BTW2 I've always been curious about the history of that press, since it has that big nr. "26" marked in the safety gate and in the extruder, which makes one thinking about a pretty pig installation. But I suppose that before Nottingham it was installed in Sweden, not sure though. But the one in Sweden wasn't a big installation. So, before Sweden ... who knows.
The other possible "path" leads towards CBS Colombia, because it was the only plant in Latin America running with "modern" (back then) Toolex Alpha automatic presses, while - as far as I know - the other south-american pressing plants were using older gear - mainly dismissed from the USA.

[boryo]

I know an old man who, if memory serves well, installed 27 presses in Nottingham. This just sparked into my mind when I've read 'nr 26' but don't take my words 100%, I could also be wrong.

[Aussie0zborn]

Surprisingly there were a number of Toolex AD12 presses used at various plants in South America. CBS Colombia had eight according to the UK guy who went there and bought them. Another plant in Colombia also used AD12 presses - they ended up in a factory making brake pads with only one being saved and set-up for pressing. Another plant in Mexico had ten including an AD702 which later went the USA. At least two plants in Venezuela used Toolex with one of them having ten presses. Their seven AD1202 presses had sequential serial numbers while the two AD1207 presses had later serial numbers. The tenth press was an AD702. Except for the AD702, these later went to France.

But generally, South America was dominated with American presses - particularly Finebilt - probably due to low labour costs in some of those countries.

[mossboss]

No 26 Who knows, I finished up with most of the Nottingham pressing plant I doubt there was 27 presses but I certainly do not know for a fact
I can say we had at least 10 presses in storage mostly cannibalized plus 13 installed so I can count 23 but not all of them were ex South American Some were ex eastern block from the manuals we had certainly Bulgaria as well as Hungary and some of the manuals were also in Croatian and Spanish Hard to figure out what come from where
The fact is that there was a concentrated effort by a group of UK based people who first jumped on the collapsing eastern block countries getting all manner of vinyl record pressing gear for pittance than they went over to South America repeating the act, From what I can tell and be told by first hand account only from the determined effort of a couple of individuals the plant in the Czech Republic remained intact, I was told it was a close call
In so far as the Ex Mexico machines they certainly went to the USA than found their way to the UK for refurbishment and refitting by a now past-on old timer
By the way there was at least 7 x 702 presses, most of them them where cut in half at the base to separate the extruder from the rest of the machine so as to be used for whatever, exactly the same as the one in Venezuela
They where welded badly back into shape a real rough job which made the machines in need of real proper refurbishing but they where all there and quite usable
Not sure how many went back to the USA I doubt if all of them did, one finished up in France, I am also told another 2 stayed in the UK but that's only third hand info quite possible as there are a couple of 702 appeared in the last few years from who knows where
When it all said and done there was around 1500 Auto Alpha Toolex machines made and sold over the years The biggest single order for them I believe was by RCA for around 80 odd presses for the RCA Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED), which encoded video onto a modified phonographic record.
There is a nice video on U tube about the DMM lathe as well as a shot of the presses used for the format It was not a great success, I wonder whatever happened to those presses
Maybe we start the Alpha Toolex Heritage society see if we can track them down?
Any way From the total of 1500 made over many years there are quite a few in operation worldwide, my guess is around 300-400 It be nice to narrow it down
On another note Alpha Toolex record pressing machines survived in higher numbers than other brands as their unique 3 post design made them unsuitable for other uses unlike the 4 post design common to all other presses that got repurposed easily for other manufacturing purposes ie compression and rubber moulding etc
Best