In principle your idea would work. The idea is to get the base+plate to type high (0.918) or higher if your press was designed to work with a galley tray. You can find aluminum in 30×45″ at supply houses like McMaster-Carr but you are right that it will be expensive. If it was up to me I’d much rather sacrifice base size for one solid piece of 7/8″ aluminum.

Good luck and let us know how it works out!

I understand that working with wooden bases for polymer plates is a pain. As I’m looking to make my own base, I’m wondering about the possibility of using a base that’s surface is aluminum (lets say 1/2″ thick) and then below that is some high density wood (aprx 3/8″).

The reason I ask is because my printable area is 30×45″ (showcard press like the one here: http://itsfancy.com/showcard/Site/Library%202.html) and aluminum at that size is tough to come by much less, expensive!

what do you think?

Standard Boxcar plates are 0.037″ thick and if the base you have is 7/8″ (.875″) thick then the height does not need to be milled down any further. In the end you want your base+plate to measure type high (0.918″) however 7/8″ thick aluminum is a standard stock part and is only 0.006″ lower than type high.

On most platen presses, especially tabletop and small floor models you will need to put tape on the rails to bring the rollers to the proper height to ink the plate. Therefore, you can just add slightly less tape on the rails. Especially with a Kelsey 3×5, the height of the base+plate is not critical.

If you have any other questions, feel free to post them.

Evan
Dolce Press Staff

We are new to this. Kindly help us out.

We’re glad you found the post helpful. In your case with a deep relief base and plates you are correct that you will want to have the base machined to a thickness of about 0.858″.

If you are only going to be printing with the base then it doesn’t matter if your base + plate are exactly type high since you can adjust the inking with tape on your rails and impression with packing. If your lucky you have a craftsman or windmill and have adjustable rails. If you are going to be printing other things on the press such as hand set type or cuts mounted on wood then the thickness will be more of a concern.

Make sure to ask whoever is making the base for you, what the tolerance of the thickness is? Also, the official base that Boxcar sells is anodized with a grid which serves two purposes. First, the grid helps with alignment of plates and second the anodizing produces a slightly rough (pebble) finish which helps to pull plates off. With our original base the smooth mirror finish made the plates stick extremely well, and were therefore very hard to remove.

As far as choosing a size for the base you will want to pick something that doesn’t fill up the entire chase so that you have room for gauge pins. You can also consider cutting a larger base into a few pieces and only use a small piece when you have small plates. But if you need more space you can lock up several pieces in one chase.

I hope that answers your questions,
Alex

Also, I’ve been thinking about making it 4.5 x 7.5, in case I want to print metal type with it too. I use photo polymer plates only for small stuff, bigger drawings I usually carve them myself because I enjoy it. What’s your suggestion on this?

Thanks,
Karina.