The commercial printer took delivery of the old machine at its premises in Worthing, West Sussex earlier this month. It was donated by a retired printer who is friends with managing director Ian Strudwick.

With the platen now onsite, Strudwick and his team of nine staff will endeavour to get it back into working order so it can run alongside the firm’s broader range of litho, digital and large-format commercial print.

“This Thompson had been sitting in a garage gathering dust for decades,” said Strudwick. “Its owner was over the moon when we took it on and promised to get it into usable condition. Right now, it is rusty and dirty as anything.

“One of our guys rebuilds classic cars in his spare time, so we do have some insight on how this works and where to look for the parts we need – though we have never attempted something like this before.

“We are aiming to get the press to work alongside the rest of our offering, such as our digital printers and finishing kit. Craft and vintage are back in fashion, so this would be a great USP for us to run alongside our conventional, modern machinery.”

The Thompson platen was delivered on 12 February

The Thompson press is a British design, initially manufactured in the UK from 1931 to compete with the Heidelberg platen machinery coming out of Germany. Production ceased during the Second World War in order to commit resources to arms manufacture. The machine Kenads has taken is thought by Strudwick and its owner to have been built in 1947.

Bought new in the 1930s, a Thompson-British automatic platen press would have cost around £275.

An electrician has already attended at Kenads to replace the motor, and it has been turning over successfully. Other parts that need fixing and replacing include the rollers, which have worn down over time, but Strudwick said the task of finding pieces may be “a nightmare”.

He said: “I have always liked old machinery, one of the first things I worked on was a Heidelberg platen. In this digital world we live in we mostly bring in machines to be replaced a few years down the line. We want to preserve this bit of history.”

At Kenads’ 170sqm premises, the commercial printer fulfils litho work with a five-colour Sakurai, digital with a five-colour Ricoh, and large-format on an Epson SureColor. The £700,000-turnover firm’s finishing capabilities were recently enhanced by the installation of a new Vivid Matrix laminators, which also boasts embossing and foiling.