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.
My boyfriend and I spent about 5 hours over the weekend trying to planarize the press so I can get an even impression. By about the 3rd hour, I was about to throw the press out the window! Im glad I didn’t because the press prints to perfection now. As you can see by my picture on Gripper arm issue, I was getting a heavy impression on the bottom of my design. To planarize the press on a C&P Pilot, you need to adjust the impression screws (the 4 screws attached to the back of the platen). You definitely need to have patience to do this because it is really just a matter of trial and error. After every adjustment, you need to check the impression and the worst part is that the screws are very temperamental and changing 1 will effect the other 3.
Once that was fixed, I had the problem with it not making a deep enough impression. I know back in the “old days” it was a “sin” to get a push through the paper. Well times have changed and if I wanted to get a flat image, I would just go with offset printing. To fix the impression depth, you will need to add packing. Packing is paper that is added inbetween the 2 sheets of tympan paper. The best way to go about this is to add 1 piece of packing at a time until you get the impression you desire. You might have to change your packing depending on the thickness of you paper stock.
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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Being a graphic designer, it is only natural to want to expand to the world of printing. Not just ordinary, offset but lettepress printing. Now, that I know what I want to do, where do I begin? The first step is searching the internet. I came across www.briarpress.org which is the most amazing site for anyone who wants to know anything and everything there is to know about letterpress printing. Another great site was https://listserv.unb.ca/archives/letpress.html which is a forum like briar press, but with alot less traffic, where people can post items for sale, post wants, or ask questions to other members of the forum. Another place to look is www.craigslist.org which is city specific so if you lucky enough to find one, at least its local. If you really don’t care about a bargain you can try http://www.donblack.ca/.
After checking out some sites, I found my amazing Chandler and Price pilot press on briar press. I email the poster right away of course, (crossing my fingers that it has not sold already) and lucky me, he emails back saying that its available. Now that I have a press, what next?
