Lessons From The First Day of (Attempted) Printing

Wearing my trusty Friday overalls and acceptably indie/chic This American Life tee, I set about my first real day of letterpress troubleshooting on the Pilot.

Lesson #1: Me and gauge pins? Not friends. I'm assuming that since we don't know each other very well our relationship can only improve. But right now we're not really speaking to each other.

I'm super paranoid about denting my Boxcar base, and I'm not really sure which parts of the pins should absolutely NOT contact the base. I'm also not 100% sure about which parts are supposed to hold the paper, and they just never seem particularly secure to me. I'll probably do a whole post specifically about these little fuckers, but right now we need some space.

Lesson #2: Taping the rails is fairly painless, and has fast results.

When I first started inking the plate for my "shit / i'm sorry" notecard, ink was getting all over the place. In the Boxcar video on taping the rails, the guy uses some fancy nylon strapping tape, which I don't have at the moment but may look into. Instead I added about 4 layers of scotch tape to the rails to raise the rollers a bit. This improved things dramatically, but there were still some places being inked that shouldn't have been. Another layer or two, and the plate was inking perfectly.


Lesson #3: I have a lot to learn about packing a platen press.

The first couple of prints I pulled, there seemed to be good ink coverage around the edges but not in the middle. So, I kept adding more and more packing thinking it must be the problem. However, the more packing I added the less even the print was. After a few hours, only about the bottom half of the print was coming through clearly. What the hell? I even tried using makeready buried under the tympan just under the top half of the print, but then things got even screwier. Finally, I thought "this can't be right" as my packing bulged and there was barely any OOMPH when I pulled the arm to print.

So, I went backwards about 11 steps and left only a small amount of packing. This did the trick for the most part, and I didn't even have to use any additional sheeting under a specific section of the print. I'm sure all of this has some very technical explanation to do with pressue distribution, but I'm just not used to such things yet having mainly worked on flatbed presses. Exhausted but somewhat accomplished, I finally produced a mostly acceptable print:


Lesson #4: The jury is still out on print quality and smudginess, but water-based ink cleanup sure is a breeze.

Seriously, 90% of the ink came off using no solvent whatsoever. I used a small amount of vegetable oil towards the end just to make sure everything was ship shape, and no stinky mineral spirits (which I'd like to avoid in the interest of preventing future flipper babies). I'll have to wait for the test prints to dry before I can really speak to the smudginess factor, and I'm not 100% thrilled with the ink coverage. However, the colors are nice and I think it's worth continued testing.

Lesson #5: My neck hurts.

Pulp & Press Soundtrack 3/20/09: Take Back The City (Snow Patrol), Don't Drag Me Down (Social Distortion). Yeah, Mike Ness rocks balls. I wonder if he needs anything letterpressed.

Along With The Pilot...

I acquired a whole bunch of nifty items to get me up and printing. I bought a "Letterpress Starter Kit" from Paul Aken at The Platen Press Museum. Paul is a great guy and a collector of all types of printing equipment, but mainly platen presses. I took photos of all the things I brought home with me:




The opened package of gauge pins








What the package of gauge pins looks like on the outside








The first line of type I intend on printing, locked up in the chase








Another shot of the type locked up








Yeah, a closeup of the locked up type








Spaces for the font I got








My first font, 14 pt. Typo Upright, is a nice serif








A tiny tin of black ink








Tympan paper








Furniture! I love furniture. It sounds like Lincoln Logs when it clinks together







Leads and slugs








Reglets and nonpareil








Wedge quoins and quoin key








Composing stick








Planer







Line gauge






Also gotten was some pressboard and an imposing surface. Oh! And Paul also gave me an awesome old cut of a rooster. Even though I need new rollers for the Pilot, I should be able to run a few prints of this line of type soon. Maybe tomorrow!

What To Buy Before Printing With A C&P Pilot

OK, I've been doing research into the additional items I'll need to purchase along with my new presses in order to actually print on them. I'm hoping some of the smaller items will come included, but it's possible I may have to hunt down everything myself. I'll start with the C&P Pilot, because that's the one I'll likely have first since it won't require any special shipping arrangements (it "only" weighs about 200 pounds). If everything goes well I could be bringing it home this weekend!

I found this awesome Operating Instructions and Parts List for Chandler & Price Pilot Press on the Dolce Press website (thanks guys!) which has helped a lot.

Needs For The C&P Pilot Letterpress

1. I've been told that it needs new rollers. I've done a little research, and come up with these options for where to buy them:

NA Graphics (Colorado) C&P Pilot 6 1/2x10 Form Roller, new core, rubber, $101.20 C&P Pilot 6 1/2x10 Form Roller, new core, vinylith, $87.30 So, I guess I'll need to find out if the rollers need new cores as well - I'm inclined to just buy new everything, but I suppose I should try to save money where I can. The prices on the NA Graphics website are "estimated," so I'd probably have to call them to get actual pricing.

American Printing Equipment (New York) 6-1/2 x 10 Pilot Press Letterpress Rubber Rollers Set/2 with Steel Core, $145 Definitely seems more expensive than NA Graphics, but I guess I may not have the real NA Graphics price yet.

Republic Roller Corporation (Michigan)
These guys are listed on Briar Press, and it's always good to find suppliers in the next state over. I'll probably give them a call to see if they have what I need and how much it would cost.

There also 10+ other listings on Briar Press for people supposedly selling rollers, so if I don't have any luck with the ones I've listed I can always check for more there. There's a good guide on rollers too.

2. Tympan Paper: according to this discussion on Briar Press, there are a lot of alternatives. However, due to my love of rules I may opt to at least start out with the real thing before I start experimenting. It looks like I can get the correct size from American Printing Equipment.

3. Gauge Pins: these little buggers are one of the main reasons I've been reluctant to buy a platen press at all. I'm sure my relationship with them will evolve, as I really haven't done too much platen printing compared to the amount I've done on Vandercooks. I just feel like there's no possible way gauge pins can reliably hold the paper in place for proper registration because they're just so tiny, yet I know it must be possible. So, I suppose I'll just have to get over it. I'm hoping to acquire a few of these with the purchase of the presses. If not, it appears they're readily available and not too expensive.

4. Furniture: even though I'll likely be doing most or all of my printing using polymer plates, I'll still need some furniture to lock up the Boxcar base in the chase. Probably only a few pieces - but I do really like the big furniture cabinets so I'll probably just go ahead and get one. Plus, I can see myself buying some type eventually, and you never know when you might find a perfect woodcut you want to print with.

5. Speaking of Boxcar bases, I'll be needing one (or several) of those. I dealt with Boxcar one before when I had them make some plates for me, which were kind of expensive but they were really nice and helpful. Dang these things are expensive! Looks like they recommend a 5 x 8.5 for a Pilot ($175) and a 6 x 9 for an 8 x 12 C&P. That page I just linked to also has a lot of good general information about using Boxcar bases with platen presses. I'll definitely be poring over that. The Boxcar Printing Manual also has a lot of good tips.

6. Roller gauge(s): I hadn't really thought of these, mainly because up until now I have pretty much judged roller height based on how prints look. I suppose it would probably be a good idea to grab one, though, plus they're pretty cool looking and not that expensive. Also, the Boxcar base letterpress starter packs come with one anyway, which sounds like a good deal.

7. Ink: I'll probably go with rubber based ink to start off with, but will likely end up experimenting at some point. These starter ink packs from Boxcar sound pretty cool, so I'll probably end up getting one of them. There is an interesting (and at times unnecessary aggressive, as internet discussions tend to be) thread over on Briar Press about ink alternatives and possible effects of various toxic letterpress substances. This is definitely of interest to me, as I will likely be having my own minis in the not too distant future. Someone mentions that water based inks work well for them on their Pilot, so maybe I'll investigate even though I'm not sure they're meant for use with polymer plates.

8. Cleaning supplies: another area in which to consider possible non-toxic-ness, and one in which I'll certainly have to experiment based on the types of ink I end up using. I'll also need to procure some of those nifty rags all letterpress studios seem to have, as well as figure out how to get them cleaned. I'll probably be asking my friends over at The Evanston Print And Paper Shop for suggestions on this one.

OK - that's all I've got for now. Is there anything else I'll need to start printing on my Pilot? I'm assuming, of course, that all the parts will be working and I won't have to do any major repairs or replacements. I'd like to clean and restore the press to it's best possible working condition, so I suppose there may be a few other things I'll need to get (oil?) to keep it happily maintained.