New Blog for 2010
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| New in 2010: First, an apology. As many of our friends have noted, the blog had not been updated since last November. Long story about that, but briefly, I've just been too busy to stay on top of this, but I'll do the best I can.  January 24, 2010Andrea & Joe stopped by on a relatively chilly January afternoon to "see what this letterpress printing is all about"... Well, it was a bit chilly to actually print anything, but I had the 10x15 C&P set up for a job I had recently printed, so we were able to at least learn a bit about hand-feeding the C&P - without acutually printing anything. That comes later (see photos from their visit in April below.) March 12  There was
some discussion on Briar Press recently about inking problems
on the 5x8 Kelsey. One suggestion made was to use a set of roller
bearers. The question arose, "where can one get roller bearers these
days?". Having used roller bearers on various jobs over the years, and
having sets that had been made for my 8x12 & 10 x15 C&Ps many,
many years ago, I figured that I could make up a set for this fellow's
Kelsey Excelsior 5x8. Since the 5x8 chase is already quite small, I
designed these with an undercut so that they would fit over the side
walls of the chase, giving a full 36-point wide bearing surface while
taking away only 18 points of space on either side of the chase.  I used
some old wood furniture, knowing that the wood was good and straight
and well-seasoned - maybe 50-100 years' of 'seasoned'... and I cut them
to close tolerance on my Hammond Glider Trim Saw. Note in the photo how
they fit tightly over the walls of the chase. Once they were cut to fit, they were treated with some of the Parafin Oil used to treat the wood furniture made by Thompson Cabinent Company. This will not only protect them from ink and solvents, but surely give the wood a fine patina as well... February 18, 2010 Jeremy Barlow came by with the beautifully restored 5x8 Victor he got from Louis. Now it was time to learn to learn how to use it....
March 26-27, 2010  Barbara
deWilde Sheldon is a book jacket designer at Random House in NYC. Her
husband Scott knew that she loved the look and feel of letterpress
printed items, but had never had the opportunity to actually print on a
letterpress herself.  So, his anniversary gift to her this year was a few
nights in a Bucks County, PA Bed & Breakfast, and two days' work in
a dirty old print shop filled with hand type, wood type, engravings,
and, of course, a variety of letterpresses to print on. She had a ball
designing with wood type and printing some note cards on the
Vandercook.  Meanwhile, Scott spent his time here learning how to to set hand type, add in some old cuts lock up the form, make ready the C&P and print some tickets for an upcoming theatre production - special tickets for some "swanky seats" given to patrons of the theatre group they work with.  Here, Scott is printing the "Swanky Seat" tickets on the 1914 Chandler & Price 10x15 platen press. ...Two days designing with real wood type and printing in an old letterpress shop. Now, how's that for a creative anniversary gift for a graphic designer?  March 29,
2010Richard White is a part time attorney, full time photographer & poet who wanted to revive his knowledge of letterpress from his old school days and hand-set and print some of his own poetry to be framed along with selected photographs from his portfolio. He came by the shop, hand-set one of his poems and printed a few copies. After he found that he did indeed still have ink in his veins, he contacted Bill Reiss of Quaker City Type and bought a few fonts of his own which he now hand-sets at home and brings finished forms to the Excelsior Press to print on our Vandercook.  April
10, 2010Andrea & Joe came back again - this time to learn how to print on the Heidelberg Windmill they had recently acquired - since their last visit in January. Andrea designed this two-color poster for the annual "Leek Fest" held in her home town in Nortwestern PA, and they printed the brown form on the Windmil on day one and the yellow-green form on the Vandercook on day two. I call them the "bumble bees" because it is said that it's scientifically impossible for bumble bees to fly, but they don't know that, so they do. Joe did not know that it was impossible to fully disassemble a Heidelberg Windmill and extract it from a basement through a pair of Belco doors, then get all the parts back to his garage and reassemble it and make it run again. As a result, he successfully did what most printers would consider impossible. Next, he tackled a rocking platen problem on their 8x12 C&P and apparently has gotten that fixed as well. An amazing couple, and lots of fun to work with...  April 22, 2010Another Anniversary present - a day at the print shop for Lenor as a gift from her husband. Lenor designs greeting cards and wanted to print some by letterpress. She arrived with photopolymer plates of some of her designs, mixed up some custom ink and printed some cards on the Vandercook - and then printed one set on the C&P and finished up by scoring them for a perfect fold on the old Gordon treadle press before the day was over and it was time to go home. April 24, 2010  A
number of folks have reported problems adjusting their platens on their
small presses. While one solution is to use a Vandercook 'lollipop' to
adjust both rollers and platens, and others suggest locking up some
large letters in the corners of the chase, not everyone has a lollipop
or the large letters to to do this with. So we've come up with this set
of Ludlow slugs which can be locked up in the four corners of the
chase. Just tighten the impression screws until all four corners give
the same impression when the press is closed. (Soon to be available on the fund-raising page)  April 30, 2010Dawn teaches art, print-making and now, letterpress printing at a college in Maryland. She had some issues with the ink table, rollers and roller trucks for her 9x13 Kelsey Excelsior, so she and her husband Terry brought the press up to the shop for some adjustments and general tlc. Before she brought her press to the shop, I'd had a new set of roller trucks machined for her and installed them when she arrived. Finally, her rollers rolled as they should and the press inked and printed as she'd hoped it would. By the end of their visit, her monsterous and rare 9x13 Kelsey Excelsior was in tip-top shape and ready to be used in the summer class she would be teaching. May 2, 2010 Wanda Liu had recently acquired a nicely restored C&P Pilot from Steve at LetterPreservation in Rising Sun, Indiana. Now, she wanted to learn how to use it with our new Excelsior Chase-Base for printing with photo-polymer plates.  First, we checked her platen for
level using the platen leveling Ludlow Slug kit described above, then
she mixed up her own custom ink color for the job - she would be
printing some greeting cards she designed. With the ink color mixed
just right, she mounted her photo-polymer plate on the Pilot Press
Excelsior Chase-Base, inserted it into the press and began printing.  Super Success
with the Chase-Base. Using Megill Flexible Gauge Pins - which cannot be
crushed by any plate base, Wanda was able to easily line up the image
on the card and adjust the image position.But Wanda is left-handed, so we moved the impression lever from the left to the right side of the press to make feeding easier for her. With this feature incorporated into the basic design of the Pilot, this was easily accomplished and now her press is 'customized' for her own use. After she printed her cards, we set up the Pilot for scoring and she scored her cards for a perfect fold. note: the following will be expanded and illustrated with photos asap... May 4 Amanda began setting type for her wedding invitations. It was quite a project. Great photos to come. May 15 We help Lynda move her 10x15 C&P from Jimmy's shop at the Garfield Messenger May 18 Sachkia Barnes visits from the British Virgin Islands to learn how to operate the 10x15 C&P. She is rapidly outgrowing her Adanas and wants us to ship one of our recently restored to operation 10x15 C&P's to her in BVI.. May 25 Nicholas and Megan are back again, visiting from Savannah, where he teaches print-making - including letterpress at the University. He calls his old Gordon press "Brass Arms"... Since this pre-1900 platen press does indeed have brass side arms. During this visit, they learned to set Ludlow Matrices and cast slugs on the hot-metal Ludlow line caster. June 6 Katie's back to pick up her repaired 6x10 Kelsey Excelsior and learn how to print with it. She made a nice set of note cards for her son. See the video... June 10 Took a 2-hour drive up to Scranton, PA to pick up what at first appeared to be a "basket case" 7x11 Pearl. By 3 am, it was reassembled and ready for some serious cleanup, new rollers and soon, some printing. Sunday June 13, 2010  Today we had a visit from Christopher Seiz & Graelyn Brashear. They plan to be married next spring and would like to print their own wedding invitations. Chris runs a nonprofit on Long Beach Island, NJ where they do a lot of silk screen printing - posters, t-shirts, etc. Grae works at the Asbury Park Press where Linotypes and letterpress are a thing of the past. To begin their wedding invitation project, they came by for an afternoon's workshop, learned to set hand type, cast lines on the Ludlow and printed the result on the Vandercook. The keepsake to the right is the result of their day's work - their first letterpress project, which was composed of an antique engraving of an old hand-press, a few lines of hand-set foundry type and a few lines cast on our Ludlow line caster. They left quite enthused and promised to be back for more.... |
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 Monday,
July
5,
2010Joseph Rose and Rosina came up from Princeton on Monday to drop off a 5x8 Kelsey he recently acquired - in need of some minor restoration work - and to learn a bit about printing on it and the Vandercook.  He has his own type, so he set a few lines and brought it
with him. They printed some clever and appealing cards with the
following text:"All you need is" in 12 point Roman caps "L O V E" in 6 line wood type "is all you need" in the same 12 pt Roman caps in red ink on ivory cover. They had a good time, learned a lot, left the press to be restored and will be back to learn to print on the Kelsey 5x8 next - using both hand type and one of our new Excelsior Chase-Bases for photo-polymer plates. Saturday, July 17, 2010 John & Scott McCaughey drove all the way up from Virginia this weekend to pick up some tips on running John's recently-acquired 10x15 Heidelberg Windmill. Although John's grandfather had published a hot-metal, letterpress-printed newspaper for many years in Glouster, New Jersey, and he currently works for a large printing company, this is his first foray into letterpress printing with his own press, running his own operation.  Luckily,
John
has
access to a local photopolymer plate maker who could make him
some nice metal-backed plates - with type as small as 2 point - We
mounted the plate onto his Bunting Magnetic Base, locked up in the
chase with some wood type, the Ludlow slugs we cast for them, and some
old sign-press plastic-cast 'wood type' John brought with him. All of
these various image forms were locked up together in the one chase and
printed together on one sheet without issue. It was a good lesson,
though. We looked closely at how each type of plate or type took ink
and printed and
had a good discussion about plates & type. They appeared to have had a good time touring the shop and seeing all the different presses we have in the collection here and there around the shop, watched as I cast a few slugs with their names in 30 point Clarendon Heavy on the Ludlow, then moved on learning the oiling and maintenance and wash-up procedures on the Windmill. Once the basics were covered, we got into setting up the feed for various stocks and then the rythmn of the feed and impression timing of this press, discussed basic issues about inks and scoring, die-cutting and embossing and then printed some test sheets from his own form - brought all the way up here in his own Windmill Chase. We were unable to get a clear image of the 2 point Helvetica - it was barely readable even with the big loupe, but we could read the three point easily. (with the loupe, that is - these eyes ain't what they once were... ) But their test piece printed well over all - and, this was quickly printed in a very much mixed form. I'd say that with some care paid to the paper and ink and makeready, that two point type could be made to read quite well. They want to come back and try out the various hand-fed platen presses - to get some experience printing on the Pearl & C&P. They're looking for a 7x11 Pearl or equivalent, so if you know of one that's available, let us know and we'll pass on the info. |
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