At the shop we have been going back and forth over whether to use wood backed magnesium (metallic) or photopolymer plates for printing. We have heard a lot of good and bad things about both and many people have told us that its really something you need to try and see.

Luckily the company we use for magnesium plates (Hodgins Engraving), located in Batavia NY, will cut and mount the metal onto wood blocks to make the design type high. However, when using photopolymer plates you will need a base to raise the design to type high. The most popular base currently on the market in my opinion is the Boxcar base from Boxcar Press. Standard bases from Boxcar start at $150 for a 4.5″ x 7″ base all the way up to $1150 for a 24″ x 24″ base. They also sell deep relief bases for use in conjuction with their deep relief photopolymer plates on platten presses.

The question is: Is it possible to make your own base?

The simple answer is yes

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I always wanted to know if there was a company out there making new table top presses. Recently, there has been a high demand for table top presses such as the C&P Pilot, Kelsey, Hohner, Sigwalt, Adana and the like. I know there is something nostalgic and sentimental with these old cast iron presses but, it would be kind of nice to have one that is sparkling and new and not to mention lighter. While searching the internet, I came across a company in Japan, who makes new Adana table top presses http://www.robundo.com/adana/news/018.html. I thought this was a beautiful machine and wanted to share it with other letterpress enthusiasts. (I think the price for this machine new is about $4000 US dollars).

So i’m sure you have been searching the internet and see that everyone uses something different to clean up after printing.  Here are the products I use for clean up.

Ink Plate – Eventhough printers have been using kerosene for decades, I prefer not to use it.  Instead I use a little crisco vegetable shortening to remove the ink.  You can use the oil, but I feel the shortening is alot less messy.  I add a little crisco to a rag and rub it all over the ink plate.  Once the crisco is rubbed all over, I take some clean paper towels and wipe off the crisco.  Before inking the plate again make sure all the shortening is removed. 

Rollers – I have used crisco on my rollers but soon found out that it did not completely remove the ink.  For the rollers, I like to use California Wash made by Varn.  The smell is not as strong as most solvents and you can dilute it with some water as well for economy.

Magnesium Plates – If you are completely against solvents, you can use crisco but I feel that a plate cleaner works best.  I use ezi clean from RPB.

Hands – I love all purpose hand cleaner from E-Z Clean.  Its blue and has a citrus scent.  It does a great job removing all the ink from my hands and it doesnt dry them out either.

    Crisco to clean ink plate.

    California Wash to clean rollers.

    Ezi Clean for magnesium plates.

    Hand Cleaner.

The company you buy your ink from will have comparable products to the ones listed above.

Since I have starting printing on the pilot, I have had some issues with my gripper arms.  One issue being that it is leaving marks on my paper and the other being that sometimes my paper and image are the same size so the gripper arms get in the way.  Even though the gripper arms are causing me some headaches, nevertheless they are extremely necessary for the press.  Since the ink is extremely “tacky” the gripper arms prevent the paper from sticking to the image plate.  Therefore, allowing for a nice crisp image instead of a smeared one.  So how do you fix these problems?  I have devised a way that works well for me.  

One way to solve this issue is to move your gripper arms to opposite ends.  Make your paper larger than the printable area and when your image is dry, trim the excess paper off.  This solution is great however, this will NOT work is your paper is precut, such as when I had ordered some folded A2 size cards from Paper Source www.paper-source.com.  To solve this problem, I just use a rubber band.  How simple is this?  I just put the rubber band around the platen (please see pictures below for details).  Now that your gripper arm problem has been fixed, you will have nice, crisp, clean images (hopefully).

hint: I also use some photo corners to hold down the botton of the card.  This is a great solution if you are MISSING your gripper arms.  (These machines are old so chances are you will be missing some pieces). 

     Rubberband holding back the A2 card.

    Notice the photo corners holding down the bottom of the card.

Mixing ink can be challenging.  The most economical (and my opinion fun) way of buying ink is to but all the basic process colors and mix them yourself.  The Pantone basic colors are in the pantone book www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/index.aspx and if you don’t have one, you should definately get one. For those who don’t have one, the basic colors are as follows: Yellow, Yellow 012, Orange 012, Warm Red, Red 032, Rubine Red, Rhodamine Red, Purple, Violet, Blue 072, Reflex Blue, Process Blue, Green and Black.  You will also need transparent white!  These colors, when mixed together properly will make the other hundreds of pantone colors.   If you don’t mind paying an extra $30-$40 you can have the ink manufacturer mix the color you need for you. 

Those who are going to be mixing the inks themselves, here is what I do.  I use a piece of glass (make sure the edges are rounded off) or acrylic about 10 inches x 10 inches and some ink knives.  The pantone book will tell you the colors and the percentage of each color that you will need to make your specific pantone color (thats why you need to get yourself a pantone book).

Example: Pantone 2738 U (U = uncoated paper and 2738 = dark purple).  It says that you will need 75% Reflex Blue and 25% Violet.  Since you are not a machine, you will not be able to scoop out the exact percentage.  It is also easier to convert the percentages into ratios so, 3:1.  With that you can get a small scale and measure out your 3:1 ratio.  If you letterpress just for fun, you can get away with mixing by eye and don’t have to worry about remembering your grade school math (lucky).

 Now you know how to mix ink, get to it.  Happy mixing.

Today was my “Christmas”, but instead of Santa bringing me packages it was the UPS delivery man.  I was so excited because now I am finally able to print.  I had received my rollers and california wash from NA Graphics www.nagraph.com/storefront.html and my 100% cotton Lettra paper from Cranes www.crane.com/CraneLettra/default.aspx.  In additon, I had received my ink from Kevin (the best ink guy ever!) at Superior www.superiorink.com/.  With all of this and the magnesium plates I had ordered last week from Hodgins Engraving, www.hodginsengraving.com, I am able to start my first run on the Chandler and Price.

     My First print on the C&P.

According to John Barrett of www.letterpressthings.com, I am running not walking. I have aquired 2 letterpresses within a one week period and I just filled out my application to exhibit at the National Stationery Show www.nationalstationeryshow.com in May 2008. John Barrett is another member of the letterpress community who was instrumental in getting me started. He has a great check list on his website about what you will need to get starting printing. Most of this stuff can be bought from him directly at his shop at 55 North Chicopee Street, Chicopee Massachussetts. Check out his open dates at www.letterpressthings.com/open_dates.htm. I just got a postcard from him announcing that he is having a Wood Type Sale October 20 and 21. He will have over 40 complete fonts and 100′s of “orphan” fonts which will be sold by weight. He also sells the machines so you should definately check it out.

Some pictures of my newly aquired presses.

My Chandler and Price Pilot.

My Poco No. 2.