Until today, the hardest thing about letterpress printing in my opinion is registration. But fortunately, I came across some advice on Letpress which I found extremely helpful.

When doing multicolor registration, use transparencies. Yes, the same transparencies they use to use back in the day when overhead projectors were in use. I suggest you get the transparencies you can write on because they seem to be the cheapest and work perfectly. I purchased mine at Office Depot for $21 for 100 transparencies. Oh and the best part, they are reusable.

So, how does it work?  First you tape your transparency to your tympan and take an impression right on your transparency.  Once thats done, you slide your paper underneath the transparency and set your gauge pins accordingly.  Once you have finished your run of the first color and ready to do the second color, you tape a new piece of tansparency to the tympan (you can reuse your first transparency by cleaning the ink off with a little press wash).  Now take an impression with the second color right on the transparency.  Next Slide your paper with the first color already on it underneath the transparency and line up the first color to the second color.  Once that is complete, set your gauge pins accordingly. Repeat as necessary.  This method should give you almost precise if not exact, registration.

Please leave a comment if you would like me to explain further.  Pictures will be added later.

Thanksgiving is over and now I am back in the swing of things. Today I recieved the Cranes Palette swatch book. Can I just say that the palette collection is simply fabulous! The colors are vibrant and best of all it is 100% cotton like Cranes Lettra so, it takes impressions beautifully. Even the presentation of the swatchbook is great (I cant help it, it’s the graphic designer in me). The palette collection has a 134# cover in a kid finish that seems to be the best for use on letterpress.

A while back I had ordered new rollers from NA Graphics. I haven’t had a chance to use them since my old rollers were still printing pretty well. Recently, my old rollers started to crap out on me so I decided to finally use my new rollers. So, what happens; I can’t get the trucks off my old rollers. I tried everything to get them off; put it in a vice, hammer it out, greased it up and nothing. So I ordered 4 delrin rollers trucks. Of course, I run into a problem with the trucks. The trucks are so slippery (delrin trucks are plastic), that they are not rolling on the rails. I did not have this problem with my old trucks since my old trucks were made of metal. So I post my problem to Letpress (I love this site) and get a reply within minutes. Daniel from The Arm NYC suggested I rough up the surface with a scotchbrite pad. How simple is that and why didn’t I think of it? I should have known, being a lover of shoes, whenever I get a new pair of high-heels, I always go outside and scuff up the bottoms so I don’t slip.

Thanks Daniel for the advice and to all the other people on Letpress who gave me advice on the roller trucks.

A while back we came across a post on Briar Press about adding a counter to a C&P Pilot. While many people will tell you not to bother with adding a counter since the Pilot is not a production machine, we think that there is a place for one especially when printing more than just a few cards.

To our surprise, the C&P Pilot we purchased already had a counter installed on it which just goes to prove that even commercial printers had a use for counting on a Pilot. Here are a few pictures of the counter installed on our C&P in case you are interested in adding one to your press.

There are a few ways to install a counter and it is more about what kind of counter you have than anything else. If you’ve got a small one like ours then you could attach it to a bracket and screw the bracket to the feed board. The movement of the lever arm after each impression, when the press is fully open, will push the small lever of the counter thereby keeping track of the number of impressions you’ve made.

An alternative to a counter is to lockup a numbering machine in your chase in an area that doesn’t touch your print. The benefit with this method is that you can use the numbering machine whenever you want and it can be installed just as easy as a plate for printing. The drawback with the numbering machine is that it will limit the printable area of your press which might be a problem depending on your design.

As always, if you’d like more pictures of our setup or have questions for us, we’re here just send us an email or leave a comment.

I have been getting alot of emails lately asking how to package up greeting cards for resale. Packaging I believe plays a large part in how people buy your cards. Your options for packaging are only limited by your creativity (and budget ).

If you have some money to spend on packaging, you may want to hire a product design firm to make you a custom box to case your cards. This option is extremely costly but, in the end, you will have an amazing display for your cards.

If you have a tight budget then you can go with a company like Clearbags. This company is great because they have so many products, I’m sure they will have the size your looking for (even unique sizes). Also, if you want to package a set of cards and find that a clear box is too costly, then they even have bags that will accomodate multiple cards.

If you prefer to go with a stationery box you can get clear 1 piece boxes from Clearbags, if you prefer a 2 piece box then you can go to JC Danczak. Papermart sells 2 piece stationery boxes as well, but with a cardboard bottom either in white or gold with a clear top to display your designs. The boxes will cost your more than the bags but when you are packaging multiple cards in a set then the boxes are worth it.

If you sell your cards online and need shipping boxes, bubble lined envelopes, chipboard or other related packaging material, I suggest ULINE. They ship the same day and you will have your order in a jiffy.

With a little creativity, you can embellish your boxes or clearbags. To my clearbags I like to print a descriptions and contact info onto large round colored stickers and adhere them onto the bags. Not only is it fabulous, but its functional. You can get the stickers at Paper Source. Another option is to use paper bands. There are companies out there who make paper band but you can easily make it yourself. Just print your logo or design on a sheet of paper and cut the paper to your desired width. Wrap around your cards, dab a bit of glue or use double sided tape to hold the band together and voila, you have a beautiful paper band to hold your cards together.

Example of paper band by Yeehaw.

Example of clear boxes by Orange Beautiful.

So lately, I have been printing with photopolymer plates but I have been having some mixed results with text.  I have decided to go with magnesium plates when printing text because I feel it gives me more of a crisp image.  In general, I think that magnesium plates give me a slightly better image so with that said I will be using magnesium plates for all my text and 1 color images.  When I have to register 2 or more colors, I am going to go back to the photopolymer because it is alot easier for me to register the plate allowing me to get a perfect print (I am still having issues with registering magnesium plates so if I ever master registering mag, I probably will use magnesium exclusively).

I am actually going to try a new company for magnesium plates called Owasso Graphic.  With their offer of a free die (not including shipping) what do I have to lose?  I will post about the die quality once I try it out. 

Also, as some of you regulars to my site have noticed, I have added a new link called shop.  This is where I will have some of my designs up for sale that you can purchase right online!  Check back often since there will be new designs added weekly. 

Today is the day I finally put some letterpress designs up on my products page!  So please indulge me and take a look at my hard work.

Please check back this weekend, I will be posting a small sampling of products (especially holiday cards) for purchase online.  Happy Letterpressing!