le petit letterpress

Jane Austen is my favorite author!

2008-04-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

I didn't print Katie's wedding programs because she told me that she wanted green ink and was pretty flexible but I wanted to try to match the green on her invites. Today she gave me a sample of her wedding stationery and I'll try to duplicate the color.

In the meantime, I was itching to print something. A while ago, I designed some Jane Austen folded note cards and had magnesium plates made. I love Austen, and I especially love Pride and Prejudice, which reread every year. There are only two known images of Austen and the silhouette is only "probably" her, but I think the best subject for letterpress. I also found a really cool Jane Austen font online, which I used to quote her:

Latest project

2008-04-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

My friend, Katie, is getting married in July and she saw this accordion fold wedding program in Martha Stewart Weddings.

We worked together and came up with a design utilizing her theme which is a tandem bicycle. I had already ordered the magnesium plate, and I was hoping to print this weekend but the weather was so great that my husband and I ended up planting our summer garden instead! More on Katie's program in the days to come . . .

Finished wedding invites

2008-03-31T21:31:00.000-07:00

A terrible snafu at UPS caused Bridget and Johnny's magnesium plates to be delayed. I had planned a weekend of printing at a leisurely pace. Instead, I ended up getting up at the crack of dawn today to pick the plates up at a UPS Customer Service (ha!) Center and printing madly all day. Here they are:

Wedding invites

2008-03-21T21:38:00.001-07:00

My brother in law, Johnny, and Bridget are getting married on a beach in Malibu in a couple of months. Bridget's colors are green and purple and she has an ocean theme. We emailed back and forth about half a dozen times to refine the design, text, and font. I sent these images to Beaver Engraving last Wednesday, and expect to receive magnesium plates in time to print next weekend. Meanwhile, Johnny and Bridget are coming over for Easter dinner, and we'll nail down the colors.

Storing ink

2008-03-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

Ink should be kept in a cool dry place. In class, we were taught us to apply a generous dollop of petroleum jelly (like Vaseline) around the opening before replacing the lid to better seal it. Sometimes, however, the top portion will get dried out despite proper storage.

When that happens, use the ink knife to carefully scrape around the edge and fold back to the dried part to expose the useable ink underneath.

What about the storage of smaller amounts of ink that you custom mixed? On his website, Dave Celani describes how to fill small tubes with ink. If that sounds like a lot of work, I think an effective - although not as elegant - technique is to simply scrape the ink onto a piece of wax paper, fold it and then place it into an airtight plastic bag. I recently used some of the brown ink from the baby announcements which I stored about a month ago, and it was fine.

Gripper arms

2008-03-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

Gripper arms (which I think are synonymous with gripper fingers) are flat metal extensions attached to a bar beneath the platen.

Letterpress ink is pretty tacky and the paper can end up getting pulled away from the platen and sticking to the image. The gripper arms can be adjusted on the bar, and they hold the paper in place against the platen so this does not occur. Although my Pilot was missing its gripper arms when I purchased it, small images were not a problem. But when I started printing the houses on Sarah and Michael's baby announcement cards, I discovered that I really needed them. I got an incomplete set locally through a post on Briarpress and I got the rest of the parts from Dave Churchman; I believe he manufactures the entire set and sells them for about $100.

Correspondence cards

2008-02-24T21:35:00.000-08:00

My really good friend, Leigh, saw some letterpress correspondence cards and wanted something similar for her husband. The cards she admired had a set of antlers with the name underneath. I talked her into this more benign (in my mind, anyway) image of a top hat.

I printed envelopes to go with the cards.

Natalie's first birthday

2008-02-19T18:37:00.000-08:00

My niece, Natalie, turns one next month. My brother and sister in law asked me to print some invitations for her birthday party. They pretty much designed the whole thing from the chocolate brown paper to the pale pink ink. I helped them with layout and the font.

Envelopes and tape on the rails

2008-02-17T20:34:00.001-08:00

I just finished the 200 envelopes to go with the baby announcements. Hurray! During the process, I learned something really important about making a clean image without compromising the impression. As I inked the press for a couple of practice runs, I noticed that the rollers were hitting the magnesium plate so hard that ink was getting on parts of the plate other than the raised portion. (Unfortunately, I did not think to take photographs at the time, so I am duplicating everything that happened using the thank you card plate that I did next.)

This resulted in small yucky ink marks around the finished print.

Previously, when this happened, I reduced the makeready and the impression wasn't as deep but the problem was solved. I wasn't totally satisfied but I didn't know what else to do. I checked Briarpress - and of course, somebody had already recognized this problem and figured out the solution: Raise the rollers with layers of tape on the rails so that the ink gets only on the image.

Now the print is totally without any extra ink marks.

Finished baby announcements!

2008-02-10T20:09:00.000-08:00

They are finally done!

One lesson that I've learned is 200 of anything on a Chandler and Price Pilot tabletop letterpress is A LOT of work! That this was two colors with a requirement for fairly precise registration made it even harder. In the future, I will probably limit my work to much smaller projects.

Baby announcements - Part 1.5

2008-02-03T17:20:00.000-08:00

As sometimes happens when I work too hard, I made myself sick. I've been fighting a cold since last Thursday and haven't felt well enough to print until today. I had hoped to get a lot more done this weekend, but only succeeded in finishing up Part I of the baby announcements for Sarah and Michael.

I was also able to play around a little bit with Part II and was really happy with the results. I was a little sad that the Pilot didn't print the houses as evenly as I would have liked. As you know, I experimented with the makeready a lot to get it to this point. My teacher at Otis told me that the actual printing surface of a tabletop letterpress was much smaller than the chase (which is 6 1/2 x 10), and he was right! Since Part II is smaller, the printing was perfectly even.

Baby announcements - Part I

2008-01-26T17:01:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't posted in a while - I wish I was free to spend more time on my letterpress projects. I was happy to finally start the baby announcement project this weekend. This is my most ambitious project to date because it is large (200 announcements and envelopes) and it is two colors.

I created the layout in two parts in Adobe InDesign:

and

I sent the images via email to Beaver Engraving, and they created magnesium dies:

and

Sarah had decided on green and brown, but I selected the actual shades with the help of my Pantone Color Formula guide:

I started with the green which was 35 parts yellow, 1/4 part blue and 1 part black. I didn't use a scale but just approximated the amounts, and quickly discovered that both blue and black go a long way fast. I ended up having to add a little more yellow because it had gotten darker than I wanted.

One thing I hadn't anticipated was all the fooling around I would have to do with the makeready. Because I had never printed anything of this size before on my Pilot (the finished card will be A6), I did not realize that the printing surface was so uneven - the bottom half printed perfectly while upper half barely made an impression. I spent a frustrating hour building up parts of the makeready with small strips of strategically placed pieces of paper only to take them down again after a practice run revealed the build up affected the immediately adjacent area.

The final results of Part I were pretty but a few were slightly uneven:

Two color linoleum plus foundry type

2008-01-12T22:54:00.000-08:00

Things at work are still pretty hectic so I haven't had a lot of time to print. I'm working on a couple of projects that I'm pretty excited about though, including an announcement card for a acquaintance who is adopting a baby. In the mean time, I carved a couple of small linoleum blocks that I had. I plan to use these cards to invite some friends over for poker night - none of them have seen our house since the remodel.

I started with the sky.

Then added our house - we really don't have a front door, we moved it to the side behind the gate.

And then added our names.

Letterpress expenses

2008-01-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

The last few weeks were so much fun; however, all of the things that I had been putting off because of the holidays can be put off no longer. My real job is demanding right now, and I will probably not have a lot of time to print until the end of the month. Instead, since one of my goals is to offer practical information and advice, I thought I would post a (painfully) frank accounting of my letterpress expenses so far:

Introduction to Letterpress at Otis College of Art and
Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .500

Chandler & Price Pilot letterpress with four chases,
1 set of old rollers, 1 set of new rollers, and
assorted furniture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1200

Transportation of Pilot from SF to LA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Assorted reglets, 6 quoins, key, 5 pounds of ink,
half dozen dingbats, box of gauge pins, catalog . . . . . . . . . . . . .110

Black ink, opaque white ink, Super Soap hand cleaner,
two ink knives, brayer, California Wash roller,
cleaner, Putz Pomade roller conditioner, pica
stick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Two California job cases, set of 12 and 18 pt Univers
foundry type, composing stick, leads, quads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178

Lead/slug cutter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Two reams of card stock (one each of Strathmore
and Crane & Co.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Plus I purchased six magnesium dies measuring about 84 square inches on which I received a first time order discount from Beaver Engraving (link at the side) for about $75.

Ink

2007-12-31T16:45:00.000-08:00

If you are new to letterpress like me, you are probably starting to feel crushed by the expense. (Hmm, subject of a future post, or too depressing?) One pound of ink can be between $10 and $25 depending on the type and the color, plus you will probably have to pay for shipping unless you can find a local retailer. If you are feeling adventurous, contact David Churchman (email under Links That I Like). He is a proprietor of new and secondhand letterpress equipment in Indianapolis and will sell you partly used cans of ink for $1 per pound. I asked for $5 worth and got a selection of red, two blues, green, and mauve. On his advice, I purchased new cans of black and opaque white.

You can also mix your own colors. A white surface is the best surface to work on; the colors stay true and undistorted. I use a transparent rectangle of glass with a piece of white paper underneath. Have as many clean ink knives on hand as the number of inks you plan to mix. Combine small amounts of dark ink into the light ink until you are satisfied with the result. Keep in mind that a little ink goes a long way. The disk on the Pilot Press, which is 11 1/4 inches across, can be fully covered with less than a teaspoon of ink.

I made some pink ink for note cards.

2008 Linoleum block print

2007-12-26T20:34:00.000-08:00

Recently, I saw a really cool poster made with linoleum blocks in a letterpress, and decided to give it a try. I bought a linoleum block and a special cutting tool at the art store.

I drew an image in pencil on paper and then rubbed it onto the blank block so that it was a mirror image. My original drawing had a lot of small details and was probably overly ambitious. My husband convinced me to try something simpler since I had purchased only one block. I placed the finished block in the Pilot and mixed a pretty light blue for it. (My next post will be about mixing ink.)

I almost didn't publish the results because I wasn't totally happy with the way they turned out. I tucked these cards into the napkins at Christmas dinner and two of the guests wanted to frame theirs and one of them wanted me to sign it - so I felt more confident about sharing.

Magnesium dies

2007-12-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

If you do not want to print from foundry type or from a pre-made block, you can design your own image and have it made into a letterpress die. There are companies that will turn your design into a raised magnesium plate and mount it on a wood block for you. My girlfriend Kim is hosting a baby shower for her sister, and I offered to print the invitations. I designed the invite on Adobe InDesign and emailed it to an engraving company in Portland. A short while later, they mailed this to me:

I placed the block into the Pilot for printing.

Here are the results:

Setting type for a holiday card

2007-12-18T20:04:00.000-08:00

I decided to set some type to make some last minute holiday cards on my letterpress. A composing stick probably wasn't strictly necessary for two words, but I decided to do it anyway. Type should be arranged upside down and from left to right inside of the stick, which is adjustable.

Pieces of lead are placed on the top and on the bottom to hold the letters together and for spacing.

The type and lead are both placed inside the chase with furniture and quoins just like any other image.

The cards . . .

Foundry type

2007-12-17T19:20:00.000-08:00

I was going to do a post on cleaning the letterpress, but I think that I think that Alexandra Daley on Dolce Press already did a really good one on her blog. The only thing that I would add is to buy a big box of latex gloves to protect yourself from the chemicals you will come into contact with. I'll talk about the foundry type that I bought instead . . .

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an ad on Craigslist posted by a man retiring from the letterpress business. He was selling his equipment - most of which was way too big for our little house. He did have some empty wooden type cases for sale, and I took two because I thought they were kind of old fashioned and pretty. I had a vague idea that they might be useful to store things like gauge pins and dingbats. My husband thought it would be nice to have some actual type because he favors words over images. He even found M & H Type, a foundry in San Francisco, and helped me pick out a 12 and 18 point Univers font, which is a very simple sans serif. Here's how foundry type looks brand new:

And then I went a little blind sorting the individual letters into the type case.

Impression

2007-12-16T18:21:00.000-08:00

There are two camps regarding letterpress impression: those who believe that the printing should be deep and tactile and those who believe in a minimal impression. I think impression depends on taste and on use. You would not want, for example, a deep impression on a project that was two sided.

Aside from that, the amount of ink is important. Too much ink will cause the image to look blurry and the fine details to slur. That was the problem with my first effort:

It is okay to remove some ink from the rollers and/or ink plate, but of course, the better practice is to start out with a smaller amount of ink and gradually add more as the image dictates. Here's the improved version:

Makeready

2007-12-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

In letterpress lingo, "makeready" refers to the preparation of the platen, the flat surface which holds the paper. The makeready should include enough material to protect the platen as well as the image or type from damage caused by the pressure exerted by the press. Also, it controls the type of impression you get - a softer surface will get you a deeper impression. The conventional top layer is tympan paper because it has a waxy, water proof surface from which you can clean off any ink you might inadvertently get on it. I like to use graph paper so that I can get the position the paper guides just right.

There are three guides holding the paper in place, two on the bottom and one on the side. I'm using a trick that I learned on Briarpress.org, which is an awesome website devoted to all things letterpress, and am using small folded pieces of paper for guides.

Traditional guides are called gauge pins and they involve cutting a slit into the paper to place, and look like this:

Inking the rollers

2007-12-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

When I got interested in letterpress, I started looking everywhere for information, instruction, and advice. I found a really great video on YouTube about using a tabletop press; in it, you see a guy dot the plate with ink and then run the rollers until they're totally covered. I've tried it - and discovered it can take a really long time to get total and complete coverage. I have since figured out that dotting the plate with ink and then using a brayer or roller to spread it evenly, and then running the rollers is way easier. The idea is get enough ink on the plate so that in turn, the rollers get enough ink.

So, it's way easier to do this:

Than it is to do this:

First time on the Pilot - Preparations

2007-12-10T17:44:00.000-08:00

I decided that my first printing job would be an image of a 1920s couple dancing that I bought on Ebay. Everything that I know about letterpress printing I learned online or in the class that I took at Otis College; at school, we used a cylinder press which is very different from the Pilot, a platen press, but I think a lot of the principles are the same.

First, I locked the block up in the chase, the metal frame that represents the printing area.

I used furniture . . .

. . . and reglets (small skinny furniture) . . .

to fill up the space.

Then I used quoins, which expand by inserting and turning a key, to tighten and hold everything in place.

I bought a letterpress!

2007-12-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

My friends think it's cool or crazy. My Chandler & Price Pilot letterpress weighs 200 pounds (which is nothing compared to the full sized floor models which start at about 1200 pounds), and when it arrived from the Bay Area, it was greasy, dusty and, strangely, full of magenta lint. I was told by the man who sold it to me that it had previously been used at a school. I asked how I should clean it, and was told to use a motor de-greaser. I settled instead on Simple Green without diluting it and mineral spirits for the stubborn bits; I finished with some WD-40 to lubricate all the moving parts. I got great results after several hours of elbow grease.