I’m no expert, but I have overhaualed my vulcaniser which was
corroded solidly through corrosion. Years of sitting in a damp shed
had seized everything solidly, nothing worked or moved. What I did
was soak all of the moving part with a releasing oil and left it
overnight. I then attached an extension arm to the top wheel to
allow me to apply more force to it, it worked a treat. I’ve created
a webpage showing the restoration, under “projects” if it helps.
Feel free to email me if needs be.
Today I was happily vulcanizing away. The buzzer went off on
the timer, I go to open the vulcanizer, and can't to it. All of us
try, no one can open it.
Mine does this to me all the time. My solution is to keep a heavy
rubber mallet nearby. When it gets stuck, I whack the cross-pieces of
the wheel with the mallet in the direction I want it to turn. 99% of
the time it works. That other 1% takes me and my husband working
together to get it to open.
Again I have no personal knowledge of vulcanizers, but a stuck screw
is a stuck screw and I have struggled with many.
As in the time I got a flat tire driving a 2 ton truck full of
firewood down a dusty back road in the British Columbia interior on
a hot summjer afternoon. OK, no big deal. Just change the tire. Me
and my buddy got out the spare and the jack and set to the job which
went well enough until we got to the one lug nut which WOULD NOT
BUDGE. Well, OK, we knew how to deal with that. We had a 4 foot
length of steel pipe to slip over the lug wrench as a “cheater” for
the extra leverage. We yarded on that pipe, we stood on the end of
it and jumped up and down, we hammered on the end with a 9 pound
splitting maul. The lug nut WOULD NOT BUDGE! After maybe an hour of
cursing and sweating we knew we were beat and we had to get some
advice from Old George. Every place worth living in needs a local
version of Old George…
Old George listened to our description of the problem and thought
for no more than about 8 seconds. He asked, "Do you have a hammer?"
We responded in the affirmative. “Then forget about the cheater,” he
said. “Just use the lug wrench. One of you haul steady on the lug
wrench and the other one use the hammer and tap on the side of the
nut. Don’t hit it too hard - just good steady, sharp tapping.”
So back to the truck we went and that nut was off the lug in about
as much time as it took George to tell us about how to do it. What a
revelation!
So maybe if you can find some place to tap sharply where your screw
is stuck, while your helper applies some torque to the handle or
wheel or whatever it is you turn on a vulcanizer, maybe that’ll do
the trick for you if all the other good advice you’ve gotten hasn’t
helped by now.
This sort of thing works on a wide range of scales - Even guys who
operate pile drivers have to know how to keep the earth around a
piling “live” or a piling can get stuck halfway down and it will
take the rest of the day to get it re-started or pulled out to start
again.
Today I was happily vulcanizing away. The buzzer went off
on the timer, I go to open the vulcanizer, and can't to it. All of
us try, no one can open it.
Check the nuts on the rods that hold the bar that the threaded rod
goes through at the top, sometimes those get loose and the top bar is
out of alignment with the base. Clean and lightly oil the two rods
the upper platen rides on. With the vulcanizer platens open about
two or three inches, measure each side and see what the difference
is. Sometimes one rod can twist and one side is minutely higher
causing binding.
I have had this happen and you can tap one side or the other either
up or down and get the crossbar to move and then you can raise the
top platen.
If it was working right, something loosened and it is out of
alignment, and the solution should not be having to repeatedly beat
on it, or force it. You will cause wear and damage to parts that
will cause it to be further out of alignment