G. Johanson, Printer: Letterpress Printing & Design

Jarrrid & Jayna's Wedding Announcement.

2012-01-20T22:37:00.000-05:00

These cards are printed on pearl Lettra, which is choice for this sort of work. The colors of Jarrid and Jayna's wedding are navy and yellow, so I did some custom mixing, including some vintage tube inks that go back some thirty years. So, there's the "something old, something blue". . . all that is needed now is the "something new" and "something borrowed".

Jarrid and Jayna's names are set in Bickham Script. The rest of the text is set in Tymes (not Times Roman!) Some of the photos will show there is a deboss to the print. Not heavy, but just enough to be pleasing to see and to hold.

Here is some detail of the tree, trunk and grass. The card is printed to a full bleed, and some creativity was involved running the 'plate', or die, so close to the edge, and yet still have a side guide, or gauge, to align the paper in the press. What I wound up doing was using a double stack of Lettra, cut one by four inches, taped together with 3m framing tape, and adhered to the very edge of the image. That way the die could imprint to the very edge without smashing on a standard gauge pin.

Another shot of the text. Photographing printed items to show the truthful depth of impression deboss without exaggeration by the shadow and slant is an art in itself. I'm still on the curve of that art, I'm afraid.

The press used for this job is a 1936 Chandler and Price New Series, manufactured in 1936. In the world of Letterpress, it's fairly new. The ink used was a mix of Peacock Blue (Kelsey Inks, 1980), Process blue (Dave's Ink In Tubes), Reflex Blue (VanSonn) and "Everyday" Black (Dave's Ink in Tubes). Dies are courtesy Owosso Graphics. Of course, the paper is Crane Lettra, with matching envelopes.

On Monday, the RSVP will be run. It may prove to be somewhat of an event. Watching the event will be an intern from Mama's Sauce, a student designer, and a Professional designer, plus myself. Perhaps I'll call for a Pizza, and we'll have a "Print & Pizza Party"!

Stay Tuned!

-gary.

A Beary, Berry Christmas: a Christmas Card Design by Anna Coleman.

2011-12-27T22:03:00.001-05:00

Anna decided that she wanted not only to design her card, but to do the actual printing. We decided to use the Pearl OS Model 3 (7x11), despite the absence of rollers. This gave her the opportunity to hand ink the die. It was a bit of a process, but she did develop a cadence. This also gave me a chance to put the Pearl through a few cycles of actual printing.

We used two types of card stock, a classic white linen finish and a light grey laid card stock, both by Neenah. The original artword is pen and ink on bristol board.

Anna's favorite subjects are animals. She has a unique style that can give very human personalities to them, yet keeping them completely in their natural animal state. Her graduate portfolio review show was based on "Anthromorphism", the rendering of human likeness through animal behaviour in illustration techniques. Anna has a background in illustrating childrens books going back to her first professional contract at age 12. She currently works at Rifle Studios, Winter Park, and does freelance design as the occasion permits.

The cards were a big hit. Publication was limited to 100, handed to friends, family, and associates. And dear old dad.

Cheers!

Ex Libris

2011-12-27T20:28:00.006-05:00

This Christmas found me printing something I always wanted, but never had time to do for myself: Book Plates! Sometimes, these are referred to as 'Ex Libris' cards, or labels. Ex Libris is Latin for "Out of the Library of". Book Plates are as old as the Book itself. It was created to mark the owner, in a day when books could cost anywhere from a months to a year's salary for a skilled workman or Professional. To loan a book was to lend a substantial investment. Figure that, say, Bailey's Etymology, a Dictionary from the 1730s (mine was printed in 1732) took a single printer about one year to compose, set, print, bind, and put into the sales line-up. In some cases books took several years to produce. Matthew Henry's Commentary took so much effort to print that Matthew Henry Himself took part in the process of printing it. As mentioned above, the price of such an item reflects the work that went into it (as well as the demand for it, which must have been likewise substantial!)

The Book Plate played the same role as a brand mark on cattle. There was no mistake who the owner of the book was. Any attempt to remove the Book Plate left disfigurement that made it obvious that a person's Book Plate was once there, and that the book itself may have been stolen. To put it in today's vernacular, lending a book was much like lending out your iPad 2. You sorta kinda would like it back.

Book Plates were very personalized. Earlier examples were often very simple printed labels, typeset, with perhaps a decorative border. Many book collectors still prefer these types. Some featured a family's coat of arms, such as the plate on my 1807 copy of Walkers Dictionary, sporting the Plate of John Stephenson Cann, brewer of Wymondham, Norfolk, and owner of the Kings Head Publick House 1780 - 1840:

Others carried regular works of art, and were commissioned. In the latter 19th century and early 20th century, many notables of the day had commissioned Book Plates that reflected something about the owner. Masks of Comedy or Tragedy perhaps, if you were an actor. Artists, Scientists, Philosophers, Military Officers, Politicians, Musicians, notables of all walks of life....even silent screen actors.....used custom Book Plates to mark their libraries. And yes, some of these folks had very large, well appointed libraries. It was a very literary era. One that I find more imitated, rather than actuated, today.

My son in law, Zac, recent biblical studies graduate, mentioned his attraction for Ex Libris cuts and expressed a wish to one day have some for his own growing library. That was all I needed to hear. Dad-in-law happens to have a Letterpress Shop. How convenient.

I took for the central design a cut that dates to the 1640s. It had been modified when I found it. It is a zinc cut, in very good shape. The design features a Post Rider, known as a Postilion. His dress suggests Germany or Austria. His mount is fully loaded and he is announcing his arrival with what became known as a Post Horn, which became the symbol of the Post in many countries of Europe for centuries. In the upper left is the Arch Angel Michael announcing through a voice horn (fire masters used voice horns, predecessors to the megaphone, well into the 20th century to shout orders in the midst of a raging fire) - or maybe it's Gabriel playing a Sackbut. On the right is Hermes, representing speed, handing off a sealed message to the post rider. Possibly the world's first Air Mail delivery....

To the lower right we see townsfolk standing, hat in hand in a salutary gesture, awaiting the arrival of the Post. Under the horse we see grave markers, broken impliments of war, and to the lower right we see a ship sailing into a serene and calm harbor. We find flags mounted from a church steeple, from ships' masts. All of these were symbols of things that marked everyday life. Remember, this illustration was cut right at the end of the Thirty Years War, which ravaged Europe. Death, War, Pestilence, invading armies, all determined your circumstance in the realm of things Temporal. The Post Rider carried not only the mail: he was the Six O'Clock Evening News! He was your connection to the outside world. Not many newspapers were in circulation then, that would wait for another generation or so. Hence, the post rider became symbolic for not only news from home, but news from around the world.

This is a bit of detail. The image is 3.5 x 2 inches. The original illustration was a wood cut. This is a "Zinco" from the original, date unknown. My guess places this cut around 1920. Note the retention of some rather fine lines. I've seen the original cut, and have noted there were some editing that went on with this particular cut, but nothing significant. I chose this cut for the "News" theme. I like to think in terms of "Good News". The news that Christ had come to rescue men from their certain and tragic fate. News that God had so loved His Own that He gave His only son to be delivered for our transgressions and to be bruised for our iniquity. This, Charlie Brown, is the meaning of Christmas.

Featured above and below the central cut are foundry cast crowns, from one of my traditional/18th century border fonts, using 18 pt. Lombardy. I am not sure of the name, the type trays that contained these fonts were donated, and date to approximately 1900. I carry these as a titling font, from 18 to 36 point, stored in home-made trays. Home-made, I assume, by the prior owner. The Crowns are courtesy Quaker City Type Foundry, Honeybrook PA.

Here is a close up of the lower portion. The impression is classic 'kiss', that is, enough pressure to adequately transfer the ink from the forme to the paper. The paper itself is a discontinued vellum. I chose this paper because of all the stock that sports the name "vellum", this paper actually has the look and feel of flesh-side vellum. It has very nearly the same translucency and general conformation, although the grade is thinner and much more even in thickness. It is slightly thicker than text weight, but no where near card stock. It was a close-out item at my Orlando supplier, and I grabbed the one remaining ream. I've been picking at it very slowly over the past two years.

My packaging was inspired by fellow blog-spotter Luis Seibert. My package is made from the same vellum as the cards, cut by scissors and sealed with a Letterpress Christmas Seal, the Centennial Commemorative of the first American Christmas Seal designed by Emily Bissel, 1907, for the National Red Cross. I issued these in 2007 and in 2008 from the Florida Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts. Printed in sheets of 12, they are the only commemorative seal that I know of. The design is taken from that very first "Merry Christmas" seal. I thought it appropriate to use it to seal this little 'stocking stuffer'. A cranberry ribbon surrounds the sides, held in place by 3M two-way framer's tape.

Here's a bit of a closer view of the Ex Libris package and seal. Making the package was a project in itself. If I decide to package Book Plates like this all the time, I will be designing a die to make the cuts. That will speed things up tremendously.

Here are a couple shots of the ribbon around the sides. Added a nice touch. It would have been really classy to have a wax seal made. That would require some sort of monogram design on my part. But . . . . that's another project for another day.

So, in conclusion, the specs:
Size: 3.75 x 2.625 inches, horizontal orientation
Paper: Magna Carta Parchment "Coachlight" vellum finish, 60 lb, grain: long.
Inks: Kelsey Brown, tube, mfg 1980 ; Black, "Ink in Tubes"., purchased this year.
Type: 18pt Crown ornaments, monotype, Quaker City ; text: 18 pt. Lombardy, foundry: unknown
Center cut: Zinc, 3.25 x 1.75 inches, hardwood base, mfg. unknown, age unknown.

Availablilty: upon request. E-mail wd4nka@aim.com

That's it for now. Good Providence in your continued Holiday observation, and a safe, prosperous New Year!

-gary.

"I Thank My God for Every Rememberance of You...."

2011-12-17T10:35:00.002-05:00

Such was the Apostle Paul's heartfelt greeting to the young Church and Philippi. To many of us, these words characterize the most warm and embracing thoughts of rememberance. We captured these words as part of a greeting and note card series we are hoping to offer in 2012.

My last installment showed the frame. Since these cards are being given out to associates and friends of ours, we felt it appropriate to post the full description and photo essay until now.

A brief description: These cards are pinted on both Neenah Classic Laid and on Crane Lettra, 110#. The size is A2, 4.25 x 5.5 inches. They will be offered for sale in Lettra, with matching envelopes. The wreath is green with just a touch of blue to tone it, and the text is cranberry.

The florals were originally a woodcut created in the late 1890s by Derbeny et Cie, Paris. The text is handset in open face Caslon, 18pt. The process of printing, of course, is hand-fed Letterpress using my trusty 1936 New Series C&P 8x12. The music that saw these cards through the processing, scoring and cutting was probably Beirut, Iron and Wine, and probably some Bridget Bardot from 1967. Music is important in my shop. Everything has a rhythm. You, me, the presses......gotta have music.

We are taking steps to open an Etsy Shop. We will announce when that happens. Fingers Crossed: I still have a 'day job' to contend with. But, as the witch told Dorothy, "All in good time, dearie, all in good time.....and your little dog, too!"

Here is a bit more of a close-up of the card. It is a horizontal fold-over type card. One thing I noticed was that Lettra is not great for Calligraphy....it's great for ball point pen! Thus, it makes a great paper for note cards!

Here is a close-up of the left side of the card. You might click the photo to zoom in. These cards are shaded with hatch lines, very fine. Not an easy card to print. Originally, these cuts were printed on a polished granite paper. Open sized papers were not really used for production pieces in the 1890s, although you did see them used for Art pieces, art books, etc. But in the late Victorian Era, polished stock was King. (Queen?)

A closer view of the right hand side. These are either gardenias or camillias. Just my guess. These cuts frequented menu and stationery headers in their day.

My house font is Caslon, largely because in the 18th Century, it was the predominate face of the Western World. Even Germans preferred it as a Roman face. My font of Open Face Caslon is used for titling, and is more than likely close to one hundred years old. We believe this because it came with a lot of World War 1 items. The font cleaned up nicely. It is still being cast in monotype by Quaker City and, I believe, M&H.

Marjorie, of "3 Toad Press" shared with me that a good way of toning red was the addition of black, which I did, about 7 parts 185 red to 1 part process black. What resulted was a great, almost cranberry red. Thanks, Marjorie!!

This is a final close up. The photo was dark, so I lightened it a bit, which brightened the red a tad brighter than reality. But it's a good clear shot of the 337 Caslon Old Style Italic I used for the address. I order my Caslon from the same supplier that Colonial Williamsburg uses. Caslon fell out of favor in the United States by 1810, being replaced by the heavier, bolder faces of Bodoni and the like, which seems to align with the growing feeling of "Manifest Destiny". Caslon was too gentle, to graceful for the swaggering, westward seeking pioneer spirit that began to dominate the New Republic at the end of Mr. Madison's administration, the successful closing of the War of 1812-15, and the Jacksonian Era. Alas.....I remain in the company of Franklin, Dunlap and Sellers. Bottoms up, gents!

A Merry and Convivial Christmastide to you all, and the most Providential of New Year grace us all!!

Gary, the Printer.

A Stationery "Shell Design".

2011-11-21T23:56:00.002-05:00

The idea here is to produce a nice looking 'shell' into which I can handset a Scripture verse. The cut itself dates back to the 1890s, and was originally a wood-cut used by a Parisian printing company, Deberney et Cie. The stock used is Crane Lettera and Neenha Classic Laid cover. These are A2 broadfold cards, and will include a matching envelope.

I have several fonts of foundry type, my 'house font' being Caslon Old Style No. 337, which is also used at Colonial Williamsburg, cast by the same founders, M&H and Quaker City. My titling fonts are Frederick Goudy's floral caps, and Chaucerian Blackletter. I am not sure as yet what colours to use for the verse, or if the title cap should be a different colour from the body. Since we are going into the Holiday Season, I chose a deep green for the shell, the type will probably be black with a crimson opening capitol using on of my titling fonts. [Cindy, my designer wife's opinion: Don't go with red, it will be too, well, . . . gawdy. Stick with black text. Hall & Sellers would have.]

Here is a close-up of part of the design. Note the very defined hatching in the shaded areas. These very fine lines require the rollers of the press to just touch the die face, or else the ink can gather between the lines, which greatly muddies the image. Naturally, Lettera responded well with a nice deboss.

Here is a card right off the press. Before it gets scored and folded, the Scripture verse and Cap will be added. At this point, these cards will be Christmas gifts for family and personal gifts for friends. After the first of the year, I should be offering this as a product for general sale as both personalized stationery and stationery with pre-printed verses.

That's it for now. Stay tuned!

Good Providence in all your Holiday endeavors!

-gary.

A Card for Heather

2011-11-21T23:20:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since my last post. I've been pretty busy designing and printing for the Central Florida Pregnancy Center's annual banquet. I did take on a client in the midst of the rush, which was a "ground-up" design project. An original design, from the ground - up.

Heather is a professional pianist, accompanist, and performer. I mentioned my Letterpress shop to her about a month ago, and described some of the features of a business card produced by hand and by century old iron presses. She decided these were just the thing she needed.

The design itself is very simple: a top view of a grand piano, creating an interesting white on black and black on white juxtaposition. The curve of the piano creates a classic self balancing image. The neat thing about using Lettra is that with a little deboss, Heather's name and the piano keys "pop" up in a manner that can only be duplicated by engraving. This creates a very tactile card. But it also creates an extremely tricky card to print.

The image is cut to full bleed on top, side, and bottom. The very end of the piano comes very close to a bleed. The margin I am dealing with is from 1/32 to 1/64 of an inch. However, hand feeding a press can often produce variances equal to these fractional margins. Letterpress is a hand wrought process, not an automated machine process [that is, if you are hand feeding and inking your press!]. It is not unusual for an image to vary side to side ever so slightly. Thus, cutting down these cards was a very slow process. My 1908 Craftsman Cutter is accurate to a fault, which made things a bit easier. I don't know what I'd do without that cutter!

The cards are fun to handle. It's hard to resist running a thumb or finger over the piano keys! I might expand this design by die-cutting the piano top so that it lifts up, just like a grand piano, making it possible to place information under "the lid". That will be for another day. Or, rather, another month!

One hundred and fifty "Piano Cards".

Thanks, Heather, for the opportunity to do something creative for ya!

-gary.

New Equipment: the Kimble Electric Motor, c. 1915

2011-10-04T12:35:00.007-04:00

The Kimble Electric Motor

Recently, I had my ancient 1hp GE motor totally repacked and restored. I am considering having the same thing done to the Kimble motor for the 10x15 by the same folks, but my suspicion is that restoring a fairly modern motor from 1960, and resurrecting a variable speed motor suffering the ravages of nearly a century, which means at least half of that time, no climate control was available - in Florida - might be a "3/4 horse" of a different colour! So, for the benefit of the folks that may - or may not choose to take this project on, I took some photos and made a short video of this motor, still on it's mounting shaft. The photos show the specs indicated on the face plate, the video shows the movement and some of the interior dynamics, some of the wire corrosion, etc.

As a former restorer of communications equipment from the 1920s and 30s, I was personally impressed by the lack of oxidation and corrosion that I can see from my perspective, the contacts need cleaning, but are overall in much better shape than rigs I've had to restore that were much newer and coming from a more protected environment! But I am not a motor expert, and I may have an unpleasant surprise coming, so I'll not get my hopes up. I can say that the rotor spins freely, there does not appear to be bearing noise when slow turning by hand, the speed control armature glides freely, and the rotor contacts look pretty clean.

The saving grace may be a phenomena I observe with most old press-room equipment: a thin sheen of oil, or grease, seems to collect on this equipment when stored in shops over time, and while it collects dust like a magnet, which requires a lot of elbow grease to get off, it does one thing pretty well - slows down penetration of humidity. Very often I've cleaned these machines off to find the iron or steel beneath clean as a whistle! In fact, clean enough to run and operate almost immediately.

Here are close-up shots of the Kimble itself, and it's brass face-plate:

Here's the motor itself, on it's C&P mount and attachment arm.

Plate reads: "Kimble Electric Company, 3/4 hp., continuous duty cycle, 1(single) phase, 110/220 volts,

12a (@110vac) / 6a (@220vac), 60 cycles."

"Speed (rpm): 500 - 2000, Serial No.: 44785"

The newest patent date reads 1915.

A full shot of the face-plate, which, I think, is either copper or bronze.

Bottom center has that cool Kimble Motor Company, Chicago Logo.

That about does it for this installment. Apart from this we have designing and printing banquet announcements, more wedding announcements, and we may be doing more coaster work if all the links fall into place! We've been pretty busy.

On a personal note, all the while I've been operating G. Johanson, Printer - largely a labor of love - I have also maintained a full time management position in a local optical clinic. I am stepping down from management of that facility in order to pay more attention to Letterpress. I think it holds great things in store, despite a turned-down economy and standard printing operations going belly up to the tune of two-thousand per year. These are huge operations. But . . . Letterpress printing is not 'standard'! It is an artisan craft that produces a finely crafted product that you don't get at Hallmark or from China-based corporation.

I've heard "They don't make 'em like they used to."

Well, I'm here to tell you they do! WE do! Still by hand and eye. Still by utilizing ancient skills and equipment. Still by touch, one print at a time. American manufacturing is alive and will in the World of Letterpress!

-Gary Johanson, Printer & Proprietor

G. Johanson, Printer

Letterpress Printing & Design.

Move Day!

2011-09-21T20:56:00.000-04:00

What are we moving, anyway?

G. Johanson, Printer, is expanding his facilities. . . . the hard way. Not a new and spacious building, but rather, a small storage room just big enough to fit my "new" 1915 New Series 10x15 C&P Platen Job Press, as they used to call them, and sharing the same space, a 28" C&P Craftsman paper cutter. To further take up space we also included a 3/4" Acme Wire "Book Stitcher".

The paper cutter isn't really all that old, it only needs to be cleaned up and oiled. Same with the Acme wire stitcher. The press needs a bit more than cleaning. This press has seen it's share of mileage, and needs some cosmetic attention, deep cleaning, the oil ports need to be checked to ensure positive oiling, the motor needs to be rebuilt (I have a rebuilt motor already to substitute in case the original motor becomes a protracted project), the rails need to be checked for level and consistent depth side to side and "fore & aft". Also needed are new rollers, and I must find a larger imposing stone. My graded iron type bed, used for imposing for my 8x12 is too small, now.

The 10x15 has a split ink disk, which means two concentric disks that turn opposite directions, although they are connected without a differential gear, so they turn together, which is my preference. I am not a huge fan of the split disk, but not opposed to it's presence by any means. The inside disk sometimes collects moisture, and must be taken apart fairly regularly here in Florida to prevent possible introduction of rust, which I have seen down here before with these kinds of disks.

This press has an ink fountain! I have to remove it, clean it out, and find a connecting rod for the ink roller ratchet. This is something that I am looking forward to because my other, smaller C&P must be stopped now and then for a re-application of ink as it gets used up. With large areas of ink transfer from the dies, this can be every one hundred impressions sometimes!

I have a counter that is ready for re-habbing that will fit nicely on this press, and I will be reconstructing new tables to replace the worn and separating originals.

This press also has a power drive pulley. Until the motor gets restored, I'll be belting my 1.5hp GE that was just re-packed, re-sanded, re-wound, re-capped and re-painted to the flywheel in the interim. Somewhere, I need to find 2" wide flat leather drive belt.

The Move:

On September 15th, just before my birthday, some of the guys from the college ministry I work with decided to gift me with their help, hauling these items from downtown Orlando to Orange City, 30 miles northward. One of these fellas is an aviation mechanic and regularly hauls and loads very precious cargo weighing similarly (read: tonnage), and is experienced in moving this sort of thing. The other three guys, myself included, basically followed his orders. He brought along his own pallet jack. Tell me if that wasn't preparation? And helping out the guys was Tess. Tess is the gal that shot the video, and part of our crew.

The video was processed as a high density mpeg, and choked both YouTube and Vimeo, although the total file size of the original edit was only half the maximum acceptable. Thus, these videos will be released in parts. Part one shows us rigging and loading, the next part will be the tying down in the truck, and the third will be - hopefully - the unloading and installation.

Why did we shoot this video, where there are so gosh-darn many "moving the Letterpress" videos out there already? It's to record the great time we had, for just ourselves. We had a lot of fun, and frankly, sorta partied as we did this. Here we go:

It was a lot of fun, and I owe a lot, or rather, G. Johanson, Letterpress Printer owes a lot to these guys, and folks behind the scenes. Thanks Chris, Josh, Jimmy, Tess, Colin (on part 3), and Jared O., not featured, but who had my 1.5 hp motor rebuilt and restored. You are all part of the Ministry of G. Johanson, Printer!

So, that's it for now. My latest installment. And what will we do with all this equipment that has effectively, doubled my small shop's size?

. . . . stay tuned!

I remain, your most humble and obedient Servant,

-g.

The Making of a Letterpress Project: Jessica & Felix's Invitations.

2011-06-16T00:11:00.000-04:00

The debossing and printing were two separate operations. Because of the depth of the blind deboss and the almost seven inches of coverage, I opted to use the Kluge Letterpress at Mama's Sauce in Orlando Florida. This is a substantial machine that could take that sort of pounding. Although we were careful not to go overboard: even a Kluge can crack a casting.

The video was shot with a Handy Cam, using Mpeg-2 video formatting, which is a good quality format, but uploads just a tad bit squeezed due to compression. Also, my video editor of choice does not handle Mpeg-2, forcing me to use the editor that came with the camera, which proved very primitive. All this to say, it is an under seven minute video that is essentially a sequence of raw footage with on-the-site sound. There was a small crowd of interns in Mama's Sauce that day, so we had an audience that stayed behind the camera (largely to flirt with the cameraman!)

The printing was done up at my own shop, G. Johanson, Printer, in Deltona/Orange City, Florida. The last couple sequences are filmed there, with Beirut as background music competing against the A.C., Dehumidifier, and the motor that powers the New Series 8x12 C&P doing the printing. The change of atmosphere between Mama's Sauce and my place was like going from a Mad House to a Padded Cell!!

Anyway, pour some coffee while the video loads up, settle back, and watch the bearded old man in the red shirt for a while. The little old printmaker . . . . me.

Best of Providence on your upcoming marriage Jessica and Felix!! Send some photos of the ceremony up my way!

-gary.

Kluge Proofs

2011-05-31T01:18:00.001-04:00

These are a few images of some proofs we made from the 12x18 Kluge at Mama's Sauce over the weekend. The Debossing was done at the 'Sauce down in Orlando, the inked text was run from the NS 8x12 C&P at my place (G. Johanson, Printer).

The stock used is 220# / 600gsm Crane Lettra, their thickest cover stock. This was selected owing to the deboss, which covered very nearly 7 inches. The stock behaved quite nicely, especially where the depression comes close to the edge of the stock. No creasing or warping.

Debossing tends to polish the paper where the die face meets the fibers, creating an interesting reflection and shadow-play. I angled the cards to create the shadow, showing the depth of the deboss.

Here's a shot of the text. After we did the leveling of the Kluge's platen, and the testing of the deboss., I thought I would simply take these test cards home, 40 minutes north in Volusia County, and ink up my own press and do some proofs of the text block. Just to get an idea of the finished product.

The inked text debossed nicely too. Here, we do not want to punch as deep as with the blind deboss image. Type will slice fiber, which makes it possible to punch through the stock if you aren't careful. You want a nice balance of sharp ink transfer and enough depression to create a pleasing presentation.

Here's a bit of a close-up. The ink is a Charcoal gray, 3:1 dense black to opaque white.

So, this is what we did over the Memorial Day Weekend. Hope your weekend was good, too!

-gary

Anna & Zac Coleman's Wedding: Photobooth

2011-05-24T07:39:00.002-04:00

Well, the nearly one year's worth of planning and getting stuff together, printing Invites, RSVPs, Coasters and Programmes, going back and forth to the venue 45 minuites away finally came to fruition at six o'clock p.m. on Saturday, May 21st, 2011, in spite of Judgement Day! The funny thing was that we, the parents, were also married on another famous predicted day of the Second Coming: September 24th, 1988! Could it be that the Johanson Family is messing up the Divine Timeclock? ( I hardly think so.)

The wedding was held at Harmony Gardens, DeLeon Springs, Florida. One of the fun things we set up was a Photobooth consisting of a three sided tent, a picture frame hanging from wire, a tripod, my sweet wife's digital camera, lots of cheap costume props, and a lot of folks with character playing around with it, including the Bride herself. This is a sequence of over 100 photos taken that evening.

So Anna and Zac, from us (crazies) to you: all the Sovereign's best in the years to come!

And Anna: get some ideas while you are skipping and hopping up there all over the Smokies ,for some Paper Bird designs :>)

-g.

Invitations for Jessica & Felix!

2011-05-01T01:01:00.003-04:00

Jessica asked me to do some Invites for her down in the Coral Gables area, my old stomping grounds (back when we had White Tower Hamburgers and Burger King wasn't even thought of yet!). The plan was to have a heavy blind cursive deboss covering close to half of each card. Because of the broad area of coverage, we opted for the heavier cotton rag stock, Lettra 220#. While debossing is common in Letterpress, particularly the blind deboss, wide area coverage on average thickness cover stock such as 110 could create a very heavy depression on the rear, and worse, since the deboss comes so close to the edge, could create a crease.

Both RSVP and Invite will be housed in Crane's matching envelopes. All dies are designed via FreeHand, and are etched in 16 gauge magnesium, hardwood mounted by Owosso Graphics, who does a killer job. Why not photopolymer? I'm a traditionalist, and prefer metal if I can possibly use it. For debossing, I believe it's the best thing to use. Yes, it costs a bit more, but honestly, not significantly so.

Oh, there's ink used, too! It will be a softened black, a shade of charcoal to de-emphasize severe contrast between the Pearl White and the darker text.

So, here we are, dies, envelopes, paper and "paste-ups", which are made from Owosso's Proofs. They are cut and taped into position on cut stock to give an idea of proportion.

A close-up of the deboss and text dies for the A7 size invitation. Each card will go through a press twice, once for the deboss, for which we will use the big locomotive sized 12x18 Brandtjen Kluge, and then once through an 8x12 C&P platen jobber up at my shop. I could do the whole thing there, deboss and all, but that's a lot of ink, and technically, I am borrowing time into Nick's work-flow, so while I want to take my time to do it right, I don't want to gobble up all the production time at that facility. Thus, the heavy work is done at Mama's Sauce, Orlando FL, the inking being done at G. Johanson, Printer, in Deltona/Orange City, FL. Incidently, if you go to the Sauce link, one of the videos shows the Kluge in action, starring Nick and Yours Truly.

These are the mag dies for the RSVP. Again, the top die is for the blind deboss, the bottom die is for text.

The next shots are of the mock-up, or "Paste-ups", which use the actual proofs supplied by Owosso. Graphics. These guys do a great job. And frankly, anyone who takes FH11 files is awesome in my book. The above image is the RSVP

This is the A7 invitation paste-up, on the actual 220# cover stock, Lettra 220# Pearl White.

Just to give you an idea of the thickness of 220#, here's a close-up of one of the corners While not beer-coaster thickness (which is another thing I do: Beer / Drink coasters.) - it's pretty beefy stuff! And oh, is it posh. I've heard this product referred to as Letterpress Crack.

This is a shot of both Invitation and RSVP in the same envelope, along with the RSVP 4Bar envelope. I love the simple elegance and understated presentation of unadorned Pearl white.

And finally, this is the 'bundle' all put together and placed in Crane's A7 Pearl White envelope.

Well, that's pretty much it for this installment. Stay tuned for the next progress report. There may be a film short of the debossing at Mama's Sauce using the Kluge. It's an impressive machine, which must be hand fed owing to the stock thickness.

Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavors.!

Finishing Touches for the Reception

2011-04-01T23:22:00.002-04:00

Boy, "The Time" is coming quickly upon us. Last month, we ran the invites and the RSVPs with addressed envelopes. Now, ideas are popping up for what to do for the reception. A popular item that seems to be getting a lot of press from Victoria and Good Housekeeping, plus State and Regional Wedding Industry publications is the Pulp Drink Coaster. So I contacted my fav vendor and the artist / bride-to-be. Two millimeter four inch round coaster blanks were still the same price as they were when I ran my last run of coasters, and Anna determined that her original artwork used for the invitation design could be adapted to her liking, so we did a little digital magic and voila!

These will be reception gifts, banded in groupings of six, which will be placed on the tables at the out-door reception venue at Harmony Gardens, DeLeon Springs, Florida. Since the wedding colours are teal and coral, I used my original CYMK (read: eyeball) mix formula and made up some custom teal for the coasters to match. Instead of belly-bands, we are going to tie formal ribbon around each set of six, to give a more lacy and whimsical effect.

Hear is a shot of the coasters, hot off the press. I ran these on my 1936 Chandler & Price "New Series" platen "job press", which is the perfect press type for coasters such as these. We discovered that you really don't want to 'punch' pulp-board, that is, you cannot really strike a deep depression, or 'deboss' in pulp board owing to it's naturally short grain, which cracks rather than gives. However, you can give a nice impression.

This photo shows the level of impression that can be had just before the pulp gives way to cracking, which is fairly considerable. The original artwork was pen and ink on paper, which is perfect for Letterpress because of it's natural high-contrast dynamic. Pen and Ink illustration and Calligraphy are perfect sources for Letterpress Typography, which is why I always encourage folks who wish to design and illustrate for letterpress to utilise these traditional tools. The steel nib pen or the quill, india ink, bristol board with a slight polish, Rapidograph pen or the more modern counterparts.

Here is a close-up of how close I could take the image to the edge without sending a crack. Pulp is amazingly resilient, so long as you don't broach the cracking point. I wanted to avoid any bleed because if the image did this, then I would have to use parent sheets, cut the board down to press size, run it, then die cut it. That is not only hugely time consuming, but it's also not a money saver. Two millimeter board is not available in parent sheet anyway, so just as well design for availability, and save the client some money.

Here they are, One Thousand Coasters. Hmm, that sounds like a group of indie buskers down on a St. Augustine street corner! (Gary is thinking of "One Thousand Portraits", who, with "Waterdown", created some landmark music in the Christian Contemporary Music scene, some of which was picked up by Third Day.)

Well, as Walter Cronkite used to say: "That's the Way it is . . . . " for 1 April, 2011. Another press run at G. Johanson, Printer. Only one more thing I might add: many of you may have checked out my video showing the makeready for the last coaster run from last year. I did the same thing. Would you believe that I had no makeready waste? Everything registered perfectly, centered exactly right, with the very first impression! Usually, it takes between ten and, depending on the colours used or how many times you have to feed your project through the press, twenty-five percent of your stock to properly set up, ink up and get your impression and registration lined up properly for your run. And when your stock costs a couple bucks per sheet, that's a lot of waste! But you MUST use the stock you are going to run, so it's unavoidable. Using the transparency method really helps me out a lot, and I can transmit that savings to the client!

Good Providence, fellow Letterpress Artisans, in all your Printing Endeavors! And to you Brides and Grooms to be, looking forward to that Big Day, I wish you "God Speed". The best house is always built upon a firm foundation, and the firmest foundation anyone can have is Jesus Himself, Who is abundantly able to carry you safely home.

God Speed.

Another Hornbook Edition in Process!

2011-02-22T20:47:00.002-05:00

Ok, it's that time again! Sufficient orders have been placed to proceed on a new production of the Colonial American Hornbook, part of a series that I initiated back in 1992 at Heirloom Press, Palm Harbor, Florida. As with each production, or should I say, 'Edition', because these are books, the very first Public School Books on our shores - this one is unique. Prior editions used various types of Pine, which would have been one of the woods available to the Printer of Massachusetts Bay and Providence Plantation of 1700. But hardwoods were certainly available, too. This Edition is Hardwood, stock Poplar. Nails are cut copper. Also, we are going one step closer to the original decoupage process: Shellac. This makes things a bit slower. Shellac goes on in much thinner layers, and build-up will probably result in more layering, with steel wooling between each layer. The 'up' side is an interesting and attractive patina. The downside: more time with steel wool, circle-scrubbing each layer, front and back.

What is remaining the same is the printed face piece, and the cherry stain. Poplar does not drink in the stain like pine, it rests more on the surface. This offers the opportunity to 'age' a book by sanding the extreme edges of the wood to bring the lighter wood behind to somewhat show through the stain, creating a time-worn look. This is a new thing for me, but I like the variety this creates!

The production run on this edition is a bit smaller because the wood available comes in shorter lengths and is more expensive. In the above photo, three books are drying while the upright one is mounted on it's jig awaiting the next coating of shellac to be brushed on.

That's it for now. If you wish to know more about the Colonial American Hornbook, America's very first public school "Textbook", you will find a link to my Hornbook FAQs in the links section to the right, and more photos.

Just a reminder: these books are $15.00 each, plus $5.00 postage. If you would like one, drop me a line at wd4nka@aim.com . I also usually give notice of upcoming releases on the Letpress List, the Florida Letterpress Yahoo Group, and, of course, here on the blog. Please allow 2-3 weeks to receive your Hornbook, in that this is about how long it takes to make them and permit the decoupage layers to cure.

Good Providence in all your endeavors!

gary

Anna's Announcements

2011-02-16T00:29:00.003-05:00

Anna's Wedding Announcements were designed by herself. The original artwork was in Micron pen, scanned and vectorised. Colours are Teal and Coral. Paper is 140#/300gsm Canson Watercolor. The colour is identical to Crane's Pearl White. All text is 'French Script'. Two Hundred of these two-colour fold-over A7 announcements and 4-Bar RSVPs ran today, plus the scoring of the A7 card. No mean feat, it was entirely hand fed on my 8x12 New Series C&P Platen Jobber. Including the time to wash up between colours, blending the colours (Inks: Daves Inks In Tubes. Thanks for getting these inks out to me so fast, Dave!!), and all the makeready typical for a job that passes through the press once for each colour, plus once more for scoring, I was on my feet from eleven in the morning until ten o'clock tonight.

Here is the full set, A7 Fold-over announcement and RSVP card.

A closer look at the RSVP card.

A little detail. We thought the French Script went well with the airy, whimsical feel of the design. It is very 'Anna'.

What I love about this card is the cover. That's Anna and Zac, her fiance. I think they were sitting on a porch swing.

The interior is my design, actually. I took part of the flora that Anna drew, and using FreeHand, duplicated it in vector, to create the border, and keep continuity.

A close-up of the border detail. Owosso Graphics, once again, did a superb job with the metal dies used to make this suite.

A close-up of the inside text. While I allowed for substantial deboss of the illustrations, I opted not to go so deep with the text. There is still a little deboss, but the letters are very crisp and sharp. Debossing can interfere with sharpness of image, ink distribution on the die must be carefully monitored.

A closeup of one of the dandelions on the front cover.

....and - a closer look at the front cover design. Anna's wedding colours will be teal and coral, so we repeated that colour scheme with the Wedding Stationery as well.

Well, that's about it for this installment. Cards came out great! Special thanks to Nick and Mama's Sauce for the use of his paper-cutter to cut down the parent sheets. Your a lifesaver, bro!

Good Providence in all your Letterpress endeavors!

A Special Greeting.

2011-01-17T23:19:00.003-05:00

This card is another of Anna's Designs (Anna's Paper Bird), printed on Pearl Lettra in a muted gold oil base, which stands out very nicely, yet is understated. The card format is A6, approx. 4.75 x 5.75", and includes a matching Pearl White envelope. Inside is blank. Anna has designed a few of these whimsical "Robot Cards", but I think this one is my favorite. The artwork was designed the "Old School" way, pen and ink on a drawing board, scanned at 600 dpi, then vectorized by Inkscape. Plating was executed by Owosso Graphics. Hand fed and scored, one by one, on our 1936 Chandler and Price "New Series" 8x12 Letterpress.

These cards are limited edition pieces of original art.

The formal name of my Studio is "Q-5", which is part of G. Johanson, Printer. The attribution on the reverse of this card is handset in 10pt Sans Serif metal type, the actual font name is yet to be determined. It was cast by a foundry under contract by Kelsey sometime in the 1940s. Kelsey was well known for using ATF faces and re-naming them. For instance, "Marquee" was renamed "Marquery". But I like the look, so we used it. I'll let Kelsey and the American Type Founders duke it out over the name. (Both are long gone, anyway.)

We are selling these pieces in sets of five, plus envelopes, for ten dollars ($10.00 USD) per set, plus shipping.

The reason why we are selling these cards, aside from the fact that they are one-of-a-kind examples of both Anna's work and Letterpress Printing - is because they are also serving a very special purpose:

There is a small group of young men in our College & Careers department who are trying to raise money for their mission to Guatemala. They will be working with a well known ministry to the skate board community in that country. And in this economy, folks are watching every nickel. Raising funds isn't easy.

This is why Anna and myself have teamed up to help support this endeavor. All proceeds are directed to the effort to get Jimmy, Mikey, Collin and John down to Guatemala by March. This is just our own contribution to this missions effort.

The College & Careers group is a ministry of Deltona Alliance Church, Deltona, FL.

Place orders, or contact me at: wd4nka@aim.com

Good Providence in all your Endeavors!

-g.

And now for your viewing pleasure and interest, here is Josh doing the honours on our baby C&P!

Creating a Custom "Save the Date" Card

2011-01-11T23:52:00.003-05:00

It all starts with artwork. Either I do the artwork or the client. Or the designer hired by the client. The artwork must be high-contrast black and white line art, that is, no tonal shading, unless rendered in a high contrast manner, such as cross hatching or stipple shading. Although I do not recommend it, half-tone photos can work, but Letterpress is not the best venue for photo reproduction.

The artwork is scanned as a black and white image, high contrast, usually around 600 dpi, although I sometimes take the image to 1200 dpi.

After the scan, I bring the resulting .bmp image up in - of all things - Microsoft Paint. Yessir, good ol' Paint is still one of the best raster level editing programs around for cleaning up high contrast black and white copy for preparation of the next step, which is to take this image and reproduce it in a vector format.

Let's pause for a moment and discuss why this is done. Years ago when the earth was still cooling, finished artwork was photographed, the negatives of which were then placed over a printing surface which was prepared with a photo sensitized coating. Ultraviolet radiation exposed this surface through the negative to create a positive image which was then developed, or in the case of a letterpress plate such as zinc, immersed in an acid bath that etched away all non-exposed surfaces, leaving the exposed which is now a raised surface owing to the etching process. In the case of offset plates, the surface is coated with a developing chemical which adhered to the exposed areas of the plate and coated these areas with an ink-adhering surface. Correpsondingly, in the case of 'subtractive plates', the chemistry washed away the unexposed surface leaving an ink-adhering surface.

In either case, the point was that a photographic process was used. If you wanted an image only half the size of the original, you just positioned the artwork twice as far away from the camera lens which reduced the size of the image. If you wanted only one quarter the original size, you moved the image 75% further from the camera lens, which we called a 75% reduction. The image was exactly the same as the 100% image, only smaller. And, inversely, if you wanted an enlargement, you could bring the artwork closer to the camera's 'taking lens'. This process was in place for over a century. In fact, my favorite camera to use was a 1922 R&R Robinson 24x24 inch mechanical camera. And yes, this was my job in the early 1970s. I shot line images and half-tones for my employer at BKM Press, and for other local magazines (as well as stripping, paste-up, and running our shop's only Letterpress.)

In today's digital world, we use a different process: digital imagery. We either use high dpi images (dot per inch) which will hold enlargement or reduction to some degree, or we use Vector images. The nice thing about vector images is that the line is actually plotted on your computer using a mathematical algorithm. In theory, you should be able to greatly enlarge or reduce a vector image because we are not enlarging or reducing an image based upon individual pixels, which can (and will) distort a re-sized image unless there are so many pixels per inch that the image will retain it's integrity. There are also filters that will help keep pixel distortion effects to a minimum. You can use a bitmapped image, but the files are (a) huge, and (b), the amount of room you have to enlarge or reduce can be quite limited. Many designers will use direct Photoshop pixel images, but for me, with a photographic background, naturally tend to go with a process that most resembles what went on when viewed through the ground glass of a 24x24 mechanical camera.

This leaves the latter imaging format, Vector.

Now, to vectorize, you must have a program that will trace a pixel image, interpret it, mathematically assign a position to where to place the 'pointer', or those points that will make up the composite vector line. This can be tricky. The vector 'engine' has to interpret, first, what a line on the bitmap image even is. It has to decide which color, black, dark gray, light gray, etc. to include in the conversion. Sometimes a the best you can do with the vector conversion process is come up with an image that comes 'close' to the original bitmapped image. But sometimes, close isn't good enough. Thus, on the better vector tracers, there are controls to help the vector engine interpret the way you want it to. You can tell it, for instance, to produce sharp edges or rounded edges, or to trace each and every pixel - or every five pixels. It depends on how fine a line, how intricate the design, how minute objects are on the original. It can some time to arrive at a finished product. A lot of that time, however, can be reduced by how you handle both the original artwork and how you edit the image at the bitmap level before you attempt vectorization.

One of the most intuitive (which means, something that can make decisions for itself in an accurate manner) vector trace engines is resident on Adobe Illustrator, called "Live Trace". There are others, which I make reference to later.

After I complete the conversion process and have a satisfactory vector image, I begin to size it according to my needs, which means I either work with the image on the vector IDE (Inter-Developmental Environment, if you want the fifty-cent term for a computer drawing board), or import that file to another IDE to do this. I do both, depending.

This is a screen-shot of the artwork, produced by Anna Johanson, of "Anna's Paper Bird". The original art was created on bristol white, in fine point calligraphic marker. My task here is to remove more leaves in the center of the treetops to make more room for text. Anna could have done this at the drawing board by re-drawing the image, but that is unnecessary. I can do this type of editing with Paint in 'zoom' mode. Most of the editing done on copy-work such as this is done at the bitmap, or raster level. When editing is completed, the file is saved to either a .gif or .jpg file. The original .bmp file is also saved as the work file for future use. Of course, this is an example of editing at the bitmap level, before vectorizing. I could do some of this after vectorizing on the vector IDE, but for me it's just easier to do it at this point. When I am satisfied, I then inport this file to a program which will trace this image and convert it to vector. Because I've done this for a while, I can pretty much tell that this particualr image will vector very nicely.

This is a screen-shot of the completed vector 'work' image as viewed from my trusty MacroMedia FreeHand 2004MX IDE . I could have also used my Mac, which has Adobe Illustrator CS-4, but I usually wind up using that for either extremely complex multi-path vector tracing using Illustrator's "Live Trace" vector engine, or if I absolutely must save a ' .ai ' file. Some platers require Illustrator .ai files, but my plater of choice, Owosso Graphics, still accepts FreeHand, which I feel to be still the most intuitive and fastest vector IDE around. Adobe had rocks in their head when they decided to drop FreeHand for Illustrator, but I digress.....

In this particular case, I used yet another vector engine, one of the best I've found outside of LiveTrace: InkScape, which is a free share-ware program. Yeah, I'm giving away all my secrets. Nobody ever said I was a very good businessman. But for fairly non complex vector traces, InkScape does a very nice job, once you learn the limits. Inkscape works on a PC, which is where I have FreeHand, so it's just easier for me to pass image files back and forth on the same computer than sending it over to a Mac. In my Studio/Shop, what's started on PC - stays on PC (if I can help it), and what's started on Mac - stays on Mac. It's safer that way.

Inkscape can save a file to several different formats. My preference is .pdf, which shakes hands with FreeHand better than .eps (encapsulated postscript). Vector images saved in 'cairo' .pdf opens up directly in most cases.

Once I have the "document" sized to the finished paper size (in Illustrator, this would be the 'artboard'), I place my image where I want it. Sometimes I have to re-size the image to fit the intended purpose. In this case, I re-size the original image to about 70%, and center to the sheet. Then I choose the font I wish to use for the text. The choice of fonts can take some time for me. I must see it work with the image. In this case, we settled on French Script. If you look at the top of the screen, you can see one of the other choices, Lombardy, which was a bit too medieval for the whimsical nature of the illustration. Anna liked the flow of the French Script. And remember: the designer knows best. Next to the client, of course!

Once the image is completed, I save either a .jpg or a .gif image, along with the native .fh11 FreeHand file, or in the case of Illustrator, the .ai file. It is the vector file that is sent to the plater. I also send one of the raster images as well, just in case the vector files does not open completely at the destination to where I sent it. The .jpg or .gif file will let the recipient know exactly what the finished image should look like. I also send the raster images to the client or designer for approval / corrections. I always send images at 100% copy size. This helps for cases where registration may be necessary. Before any vector containing text is sent, all text must be converted to image (in Illustrator, the terminology is different. I think its convert to outline or contour, or something like that.) - which converts text into....well....an image! This means that instead of the recipient needing to have the exact same font available on their computer to correctly view the image and text, the text appears as a non-text image, not requiring the use of any font at all! When you convert to line or convert to image, the program preserves the individual letters and characters as a vector outline, perfectly reproducing the original letters. This ensures the finished product is viewed exactly the way you want it viewed.

This is the inner fold portion of the Save the Date card, which also uses French Script, with a little Edwardian at the bottom. Those florals on the bottom corners come courtesy of the old Deberny Engraving company (Deberny et Cie) of Paris, France. This fine old company produced printers' cuts for commercial use during the 19th and early 20th century. These particular cuts were originally wood engravings from approximately 1880.

Well, this is how it's done, folks. After about a week, I receive the cuts from my plater (Owosso Graphics) unless I express them. Owosso Graphics can produce magnesium or copper cuts in around 24 hours if you have to do something very quickly, but by my studio and shop policy, I don't rush Letterpress jobs. Letterpress printing is a hand wrought, labor intensive process that does not work well with speed. BTW, apart from being very happy with their product, I have no connection with that company, neither do I receive any pecuniary remuneration or consideration. Just calling good work where I see it.

. . . and as you may guess, the next step is the cutting of the stock and the printing of the order.

Hope this installment helps to shed some light on the aspect of the design process. I did not shoot every single portion of the process, just the main phases. Sometimes the prep work and digital imagery required after the artwork is completed takes as long to accomplish as the artwork itself!

Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavors! And a Happy New Year to You All!

-gary

Who's That Patient?

2010-11-30T22:41:00.002-05:00

These are actually game-piece cards used for training purposes. I was asked to print some, and since I had the stock, a few border fonts, and an idle Press is the Devil's Play-tool, I thought "why not?" . . . and hence my latest piece of ephemera emanating from the Press of G. Johanson, Printer. The obverse is the name of an optical product, digitally printed. The reverse is a two colour rosette pattern and Text. It reads "W.T.B., with a question mark centered beneath, set in 36p. Cooper Black from Quaker City Foundry, who now supplies Colonial Williamsburg. They have been supplying me with foundry type since 1991.

Each deck contains the name of fifteen products, such as "Drill Mount", "No Glare", "Care Kit", & etc., with a title card that reads "Who's That Patient?" Total press run was forty-five. Total with makeready impressions and registry set: 85. Not a bad ratio!

The yellow pattern on the reverse was formed by nearly my whole font of 18pt Rosettes. I custom blended the oil based process yellow with opaque white at around 15:1. The pattern is very understated. I just wanted to hint that it was there. The white photo light really picks it up.

Here's a close-up. The paper is a natural white linen finished 70 lb stock, which is quite hard. Unlike Lettra and the open fibre papers, you really don't want to punch the impression much. It shows on the backside, and you need that flat for the obverse print.

Another zoom-in shot. I've had these Rosettes for years. Actually, they are the Traditional English Rose borders that go back to the 17th Century. Like me.

Nice thing about geometric patterns is that you can use them as a sort of grid with which to align your text, if you happen to be using it as a back-drop.

Here is a shot of my New Series Chandler & Price 8x12 motorised platen press. Obviously, this is the black forme and print.

Just in case my client wants more . . . or I somehow mis-understood the order, which was taken down more or less in a rush - I decided to keep the pattern and text formes intact until I am certain I will not be needing it anytime soon.

A close-up of the Forme. Those darker Rosettes are from my earliest sort from QC. I've since added one more sort to build up the inventory.

This is the composing position in my Shop. To the left are "tie-ups", formes on galley trays, and to the extreme right is my towering type cabinet.

Yup. Eighty-five total impressions. The ol' brass counter don't lie. Well . . . yes, it can.

So, what's next on the docket? Still thinking about doing a publication, gang! But first I need to build up more inventory. Like a 22" Challenge cutter!

So . . . that's it for now. Top o' th' Season to Ye, and good Providence in all your Endeavours, Letterpress or Otherwise!

-gary.

Getting Ready for the Holidays!

2010-09-28T20:31:00.007-04:00

Well, here we go, getting ready for the Holidays all over again. Today I thought I might start off by printing Christmas tags. These are larger tags, 4 x 1.5 inches, almost bookmark size. They can serve as a gift tag . . . or a micro-Christmas card. The perfect thing to slide under a windshield wiper or in a door jam or any place where you might wish to slip a discrete Christmas greeting. Or . . . use it for a large gift. I like to use this sort of thing to accompany a tip at a restaurant. These will be banded in quantities of ten.

The text is set in 30 point Chaucerian Black Letter. The Holly border font came from Quaker City. The Blackletter font is about fifty years old. Possibly older. Colour is process red, oil base, and process green, rubber base. Paper stock is 110 lb cotton rag (Crane Lettra.) You might be able to see from the photo how nicely this open fibre stock gives way under the pressure of the impression, leaving a nice debossed print. Ahh, classic Letterpress!

These are limited quantity. While these are being produced for friends and family, I will make the remainder available for purchase if anyone is interested. Just e-mail me at wd4nka@aim.com for pricing. I promise a hard to beat price for a two colour hand crafted Letterpress Item.

That's it for this installment. Short and sweet.

Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavours!

-gary

G. Johanson, Printer.

Finishing the Scratchboard

2010-09-14T16:58:00.005-04:00

Here it is, finished up and "cleared out". The "clearing out" part meant scraping the white areas because ink dust from the stylii and the brush can actually tone the white areas in the same manner as graphite dust. What you see in the foreground are my makeshift tools: an Exacto knife (for clearing broader areas), a stick-pin in a brass optical reamer holder (use the needle for fine areas and for layout outlining - depending on the needle, the line produced can be so thin as to serve as a guide line which can be easily scribed over), and a Mabelene mascara brush to wipe away scribing dust, yet not so heavily so as to rub it into the white clay area. Yet another tool is a fine point Sharpie for corrections. I would have used my Rapidograph, but when cleaning it this morning I discovered the pin plunger in the venturi had broken somehow. It's now a casualty.

Here is a bit better view. Just to review, what I did today was finish out the flywheel, the ink disk and the drawers. This particular press is actually a Golding Pearl Old Series 5x8", using the three drawer storage table. My actual Pearl is larger, 7x11, and uses the two drawer table. The drawers are bigger. Those of you that follow my blog and know your Pearls might also note the roller hook journals were adapted from my 7x11. The 5x8 in the engraving that I photocopied had something different, and it wasn't clear just what I was seeing.

Yet a closer look at some detail. Here is where the "woodcut" nature of scratchboard or Clayboard really stands out. And to be truthful, my earliest background in graphics and pen and ink rendering as a kid of 7 or 8 years old was copying cuts from Duerer and engravings of Theodore De Bry. I loved how the hatching of lines could produce a building up of tonal values. Then later, I was introduced to a gentleman named Thomas Bewick, and a whole new world of white on black line scribing technique was introduced. All this to say, the natural wood-cut 'look' is most likely further enhanced by my personal technique, which is very wood-cut influenced.

Boy, I talk a lot, don't I?

Well, anyway, that's it. I may attempt to plate this, but I think I will hold off on that until the next experiment which I hope will be something that will eventually end up being printed on paper - via the iron Letterpress, of course!

BTW . . . I ain't no Bewick. :>)

Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavours!

Scratchboard Technique for Letterpress

2010-09-13T23:40:00.004-04:00

I wanted to produce some very high contrast artwork for Letterpress use. I can't think of a higher contrast media than Scratchboard, or "Clayboard". This is a media that I used with my first Letterpress operation "Heirloom Press" in Palm Harbor, Florida. Back then, the images were shot using high contrast line film by Southern Engravers. These days, this sort of thing is scanned and processed as a vector image, then sent to a plater for a Letterpress die.

The above subject is a Golding Pearl Old Series No. 3. I used both the photocopy of a 19th century engraving and my own 1909 Pearl. Hence, some differences.

Clayboard, or Scratchboard, is traditionally a stiff paper or board [in my case, tempered masonite] layered with a white clay or chalk substance, then covered with an even coating of black India ink. The idea is to scratch through the ink to expose the white clay beneath. The result is essentially an engraving, which can very much take on the personality of a woodcut or wood engraving. The size of the above piece is 5x7 inches.

Here is a close-up. You can see that I am not yet finished, I have yet to do the ink disk and flywheel. Then, I'll "open" up the white background to create a black border. Now, this is my first crack at doing this in twenty-odd years, so the old hand-eye factor is a bit rusty. Critical evaluation tells me that this particular image may not be so well suited for plating, the lines on much of the shading are really too thin, and will not reproduce well as a vector. If I send a high pixel image (1200 dpi or higher) to be reproduced photographically it would be a trick to keep the very shallow lines from filling in. So my next attempt will be less "shaded" and more "woodcut" looking.

I will add that Clayboards can be touched up with pen and ink. Just as the ink is scratched away, corrections and additions can be made by re-applying ink, letting it dry, and doing a re-work of any given area. I will probably take a Rapidograph pen to some small parts of this piece.

I want to create a Kelmscott Press looking Book Plate. I think this technique can provide a good artboard resource.

That's it for this installment. And as always, Best of Providence in your Letterpress endeavours!

An Eleventh Hour Announcement/ RSVP Run.

2010-08-30T23:00:00.005-04:00

One of the things I do is design work for a local ministry, the Central Florida Pregnancy Center, located in Deltona, Florida. Each year they sponsor a very nice, rather upscale fundraising banquet at the DeBary Golf and Country resort. It's been my pleasure to have been involved with this function, now going on three years.

This year, we decided that I not only design this year's banquet announcement, but print it as well, taking advantage of the virtues of Letterpress Typography. (Read: nice deboss into Crane Lettra . . . of course!)

The design we settled on this year called for something more dramatic than the relatively flowery, or sentimental designs of the past. This year they wanted an announcement that would announce like a trumpet. So we chose a two colour design featuring a central silhouette of a blazing torch, with rays extending from the centre of the card to the outer border.

The border and text are Van Sonn's process purple. The torch and rays background is an 8:1 mix of process yellow and opaque white. Since purple is compliment to yellow, the text fairly jumps.

These announcements resemble more a handbill than a typical announcement, owing to the dramatic design. It would actually make a great poster. One dynamic that feeds this is it's outsized dimensions: 5x8.5". It requires a 9x6 envelope.

Since it is, in fact, hand designed and hand printed, Q5 Studio and I consider each copy a limited edition collector piece. But I opted not to sign and number each of the 350 copies!

Accompanying these announcements are, of course, RSVP cards, as shown below.

Each impression was "double rolled" on our Chandler and Price New Series 8x12 platen press, which did a good job. I would not suggest a steady diet of large deep deboss work on a press of this size: a Kluge is better suited for this, if large areas are required for such high pressure work. However, the 8x12 is perfectly suitable for standard announcement sizes requiring debossed open fiber stock work.

Here is a close-up of the RSVP. Border registry was pretty tricky. But we managed to bring the rays almost exactly to the outer edge of the border. There were a couple drifts owing to minute finish cut size differences. I had less than 0.25mm tolerance to playwork with.

The 5x8 announcement required both double rolling and double striking in some cases. Whenever you have a die that carries lots of ink surface, especially broad, unbroken areas of colour, you have to look out for: even pressure and ink distribution. These types of designs can become very thirsty on a letterpress, and to keep an even layer of ink on each impression, the ink disk had to be reloaded every fifty impressions. Definitely could have used an ink fountain on this job. The RSVP cards were not nearly so thirsty, but the colour registry was twice as critical.

The paper used was Pearl White Crane Lettra, supplied to us by none other than Mama's Sauce Printery, Orlando. Thanks again Nick. And next time I do something bigger than standard greeting card or announcement card sizes that require some dig, brother, we'll use one of the Kluges down there, ok? :>)

All dies were 16g. magnesium, wood mounted by Owosso Graphics, who did an awful lot of work, put up with an awful lot of phone calls from yours truly, and got them to Q5 Studio & Pretty Good Letterpress awfully fast. You guys are the best.

Well, this is pretty much it for today's installment. I might add that the total run time for the project as a whole was about 16 hours, backing out the drying time and the time taken to do the layout and vector design work. Average impression speed factoring double rolling and double striking can run impression cycles up to over ten to fifteen seconds for each impression, as compared to the normal 3 seconds. This job definitely required hand feeding.

Good Providence in all your printing and Letterpress endeavours!

-gary.

Coasters, Part 2: "The Run"

2010-06-29T22:19:00.007-04:00

The finished product! Turned out better than we, the staff at Q5 dared hope! So, while we're all slapping each other on the back and lighting each others' celebratory Black & Milds (wood tipped for that extra dose of erudition), let's take a look at some of the distinctions that make Letterpress and Drink Coasters such as these unique. For one thing, most beer-mats and other pulpwood compressed fibre coasters are printed offset and die cut. Great for speed and maybe even keeping costs down to a dull roar, but the surface of the product remains boringly flat. And while the mass produced coasters may have four and five colour process, those colours tend to be less than striking. Oh, don't get me wrong, as a huge fan of Beer Coaster art, I've seen wonderful coaster designs, but very, very few that rise to the level of "striking".

With Letterpress Typography, there is a visceral contact of the metal plate against the printed surface, particularly with pulp coasters. This contact pressure leaves an emboss which is not only visible and touchable . . . but quite aesthetically pleasing to behold. Note the wood engraving which is the central image has recessed, or "sunk" into the coaster. The brown circle is debossed into the coaster as well, leaving the letters to "rise", or emboss. You don't get that with mass produced offset products. And for you other letterpress printers, note that the pressures needed to produce these effects with coaster stock is in no way unusual or dangerous to the press or dies. Coaster stock is fairly soft and gives. I never stress my presses!

Here's the other coaster. The coaster is correctly positioned straight up: the balloon is at an angle because it is in flight. The detail of the engraving is superb, all the way down to the weave of the basket of the gondola, the sandbags, and the pilot pointing down to the earth below. These dies are the excellent work of our partners in crime, Owosso Graphics, the exclusive plate and die makers for Q5.

Join us in viewing the final wrap-up video of "The Run". From makeready to stacking the finished product for overnight drying, this project took about eighteen consecutive hours to print. As you view the video, you will note that the impression is taken every second cycle of the press, that is, you will see the "clamshell" platen close twice for every one inked impression. This is called "Double Rolling", and is a technique used to provide superior spread of ink over large, unbroken areas of colour such as the colour ring of the coaster. This, effectively, doubles the printing time.

I might note at this time that the brown ink is of particular note. It was purchased in quarter pound tubes from the Kelsey Company in 1980. The ink is thirty years old! It was as fresh as if it were brand new. The colour was a deep, rich chocolate. I couldn't have asked for better. And rest assured, my future ink purchases will be in tubes!

A thirty year old tube of Kelsey Brown Oil Based Ink.

The music that you will hear in the background of the video is from Beirut (the band, not the Country!) - part of the music line-up in the Shop, including Ingrid Michelson, Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Tallest Man on Earth, Band Marino, etc.

. . . we're an "Indie" shop, after all!

Well, that's about it for now. Hope you've enjoyed going over the Coaster Project half as much as we've enjoyed making them. And note that Q5 can make these for order as well. Interested parties should contact gary, chief cook & bottle-washer at: wd4nka@aim.com

Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavours!

-gary.

--.- // .....

Coaster Makeready: the Video

2010-06-29T01:29:00.000-04:00

I received a request to explain how I set up my Job Press to run pre-cut round coaster stock. I thought that probably the best way to explain it is by video, with soundtrack courtesy Iron & Wine.

The video is about seven and a half minutes long. What you will see is the preparation which consists of one sheet of hardboard, one sheet of bond paper for padding, another sheet serving as the Tympan sheet, and a wax paper overlay. The wax paper came from the kitchen. Any transparent sheet - or one that comes close to transparent - will do. We use this to help center the coaster stock to where the printed image falls on the Tympan, after an imprint is made on the wax paper. Once centered, the coaster is held in place, the wax paper removed, a circle is drawn around the coaster, gauge pins are set, and in our case the impression was spot on!

The video was shot on the second day of printing. The impression is taken from the black "key" die for the front side, or 'obverse' of the Balloon coaster. There will be more photos to come as I manage to squeeze time to post them. Stay tuned.

Good Providence in all your Letterpress endeavours!

-gary

Coasting Around on Letterpress

2010-06-22T20:43:00.003-04:00

An order for 900 coasters. Actually, I ordered one thousand. Figure about 10% for "waste", but that figure may be rather high. These are drink coasters for Deltona Alliance Church's College and Career Group. These drink coasters are 4 inches in diameter, 2.0 mm thick. As far as coasters go, they are the real deal, ordered from a national branding supplier.

Today was spent printing the reverse side, which is single colour, black. The font used is Bickham Script, with Celtic harps surrounding 358 degrees of circumference.

The image imprinted nicely, without registering any protestation from the press. If there is too much pressure, my 8 x 12 New Series C&P lets me know by the way it literally "feels". After you get to know a press, you can actually sense certain things. One telltale is rhythm. Another is subtle sound changes. Still another is might be a change in the dwell.

The pulp-board composition of these drink coasters make it ideal for debossing without heavy driving. I do not like to "drive" my forms, and I refuse to punch my metal type. But on this surface, deboss comes naturally. The photo above has the light held aslant the coaster's surface to enhance the overall effect photographically. By the way, just about all those images you see on Letterpress sites do the same thing. The depth of shadow can really play the deboss depth depending on the angle of the light to the surface. Just thought I'd toss that in there. When you actually hold the coaster and look at it critically, you see a nice image, conservative depth, and good, sharp detail. You do not get the "Grand Canyon".

Here is a full-face view of the coaster reverse. One of the genres of Letterpress Printing that Q5 Studio & Pretty Good Letterpress would like to investigate is "Branding" with various coasters. We can obtain three different thicknesses, 1.0mm (thin), 1.5mm (medium) and 2.0mm (thick), both round and square (with rounded corners), in two different diameters, four inches being the widest.

One use for these coasters that I have seen more and more lately is for Wedding Announcements! Just think . . . . bring your own coaster to the reception! How thoughtful. But a very creative idea.

I will be posting more as we proceed with the obverse (front side) printing, which will be a two colour affair.

Stay tuned.

-gary

"Hand Sown, Home Grown"

2010-05-30T22:41:00.009-04:00

Keeping with what appears to be the tradition of Q5 Studio and Pretty Good Letterpress, once again we find ourselves in need of furnishing . . . and short on cash. This go 'round, it's a composing table. Now, I'm pretty much like the next guy, willing to make do with what I have. But sharing a table with the imposing stone, computer terminal, and other errata pretty well came to a head when I once again bumped my composition stick and sent type a'flying. So we broke down and ran off to the local hardware "box" store, grabbed my jig saw and something to serve as a straight edge and built this tilt-top composition table on the fly. I thought I might share my results. Perhaps it may help to encourage my fellow cash-challenged Letterpress ops.

Since I use primarily 2/3 cases, it wasn't necessary to build a large table. A two-foot wide podium would do, really. Because the rear of the table is a foot higher than the front, I managed nearly a 45 degree inverse angle, creating a table length, front to back, of 18 inches. Since the slanted table surface itself is two feet, this left plenty of room to stack two trays or one tray and copy.

Except for the finishing work, staining, etc., this is the fully constructed item. The riser on the back is to steepen the angle of the top tray when two are stacked. The very front of the table comes to approx. 38 inches. Perfect to set a bar-stool in front of. The space below will have shelving added, perhaps to serve either for galley storage or paper storage. It is wide enough to actually make this into a type cabinet, but frankly I already have one that tops 6 feet. What I need is just plain old fashioned cabinet storage.

Here she is with trays on her. The top tray is very stable. Since the table will be against one of the shop walls, there will be zero chance of anything falling . . . unless I do something stupid which actually isn't all that beyond me.

Here it is, installed. I've got a plank in front of the lower storage area that will eventually serve as a set of doors. I installed it next to my behemoth type cabinet. Now, I did not build that type cabinet, it was built by a Lawyer up in Ormond Beach to house 18 2/3 cabinets, double spaced. It is capable of being modified to hold 36 trays in tight formation. But right now I am taking advantage of the open spaces between the trays for added storage (things that will not fall into the type and cause damage.) What are those drawings? Well . . . I used to work with some up and coming Manga artists some years back. Periodically one or another would grab a board and do a sketch for me. Some of these are very special gifts from some very sweet and talented young artists. One of them, Jennifer, I believe is now published.

Here is another view showing my over-abundant furniture cabinet setting atop more furniture that fills every single one of those drawers! I might add that every one of these cases are Thompson Cases, ordered from Kelsey. Most of the cases had Kelsey Catalogue type in them, double laid, but I added my M&H foundry Caslon collection and my Quaker City Caslon fonts. I still have specialty fonts waiting for a cabinet to put them in. These are in home-made trays, all surprisingly well constructed. One set includes several point sizes of Chaucerian Titling, a dead ringer for the reconstructed Gutenberg fonts such as what was used in the BBC special "The Machine that Made Us". I have a few pieces of that particular font courtesy the kind folks of the American Amateur Press Association, during their National Meeting at Tampa University a couple years back ( see archives on this blog.)

Ahh yes, more non-commercial homebrew cabinets. These I had from my days at Heirloom Press in Palm Harbor, Florida back in the very early 1990s. The brown cabinet setting atop the blue one is my slug cabinet. The blue cabinet holds my border fonts and smaller specialty fonts, leads and also serves to hold smaller galley trays. It dates back to the 1930s, and came with a small hobby shop that I bought out sometime 1991.

A little bit more home-brewing with what's available: Wine Crate wall cabinets. Heh, even Ikea doesn't have these! Great for holding . . . whatever! See how many oddball things you can identify that I've got stuffed in these "wall cabinets".

Here's a closer look at some of those Manga sketches. The center was a going away present from the artist.

Ok. I'm straying from the subject. Sorry.

Here's another Manga sample. It amazes me how the different artists render a wholly different "take", which makes their work wholly different. One artist is very oriental in approach. This gal here is wholly different, assuming an almost Euro-medieval personality. Of course, the German helps lend to that feel. I didn't think the spelling/grammar was all that important: it can be edited. Actually, I would love to do this card on Letterpress! Hmm . . . Manga Letterpress. I would need to secure the artist's permission, however. Wherever she is.

Zelda of Hyrule is totally different even still. This was sketched on a Post-it note. I was totally taken by it, so I asked if I could have a copy. She gave me the post-it note as a gift. I believe she is now also in print.

Well, I've wandered a bit from the original subject, as usual. From home-brew print shop furniture to my collection of my "closet" interest in Manga art and some of my association with some of the earlier artists of years ago. I now have room to display them! Golly, they've been stored for a long time, it's a shame. And, as far as Letterpress goes, Manga is a perfect high contrast art form for reproduction! Think I'll try to locate some Manga artists that might be interested in producing some Cards . . . or smaller books. You never know.

If anyone is interested in doing what I did, building a comp table, I can give you some measures and detail shots. It's really not all that hard. Sure, it's not a high quality piece of furniture - but it does the job.

Good Providence in all your endeavours!

-gary

New Packaging

2010-05-05T01:22:00.006-04:00

I thought I might share something that I started doing with my packaging for personal delivery. That means, packages that I don't mail, I hand deliver. You might have already picked up on my weakness for Philatelic things. Why not use old style wrapper and mailing cord? With the addition of my new adhesive labels which are patterned after the USPO Postcard Stamps of the latter 1870s and early 1880s, there's quite a bit of nostalgia here . . . although, admittedly, if you can remember these sort of things, you may also remember World War One . . . .

There's something about brown wrapper parcels. I dunno, maybe it's because back in my much younger days working for a printer in South Orlando, we actually wrapped our jobs like this. We did some pretty high quality work - so maybe in my small mind it speaks "quality". Here you can see the Peacock Blue label. Hmm . . . wish I had an old style hand canceler with the flag and wavy bars that was common in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century.

Here's a close-up of one of the Labels. Owosso Graphics did a great job holding the fine hatch lines. I have another label similar to this, only a filigree oval border. Thanks, Owosso! Next label die will be ordered in copper. Notice the caveat at the bottom, lest somebody think I was up to something. You FBI guys can rest easy. Real artists and craftsmen never have to resort to counterfeiting. Labels only!!

That's it for now. BTW, thanks for the interest in the Horn Books! There will be a new batch available soon.

Good Providence in all your endeavours!

-gary

Hornbook FAQs

2010-04-20T23:56:00.008-04:00

Why do you make Hornbooks? Largely because I'm a history student. Hornbooks represent America's first school text "books". Long before the Battledore, the Chap Book, the McGuffy Reader - there was the Hornbook. The tradition came over from Old World Europe, where these devices date to the middle ages. They represent Old World artisan-ship from a time when things were made by hand, one at a time.

Are your Hornbooks for sale? Yes. While usually a "batch", or production run is the result of an order or several orders, there are usually some left over which are available. If enough orders are requested, I'll double the batch. More than likely sixteen would be about the maximum number that I can produce at one "run". That would represent about two weeks production time.

All Hornbooks are priced at $15.00 plus $5.00 for shipping.

Orders can be placed by posting an e-mail to me at:

wd4nka@aim.com

Are your Hornbooks a specific copy of any particular specimen? No. The local printers of the 1600's or 1700s - and really, printers did not proliferate in the Americas until the 1700s - followed a familiar pattern which was traditionally used. It was more of a format with variations unique to each printing house. Almost all followed the tradition of the "Criss Cross", the "Cross Row" of the lower case alphabet. Most started the lower case row with the cross and upper case A, followed by the lower case alphabet. Nearly all utilised the Exorcism ('in the Name of the Father . . .' ) and the Lord's Prayer. The fonts used, point size, the types of crosses or the number of crosses varied. Some used borders, some did not. If I were a printer in 1730, and I was asked to print a few Hornbook pages for the local artisans cutting the wood and heating the horn, these are what I would have produced, proudly displaying the brand new Caslon faces from England. I probably would not have had a superabundance of type available, so I would have distributed the type back into their cases when I was done. So the next time I was asked, the Hornbook would have looked a little different.

Photos of originals show a sort of frame around the printed sheet on most Hornbooks. Why is that? Yes, and you'll notice mine do not. Those old Hornbooks actually used animal horn as a protective covering for the printed page affixed to the board. This thin piece of heated, smoothed and cut horn was held in place by what was usually a lead frame. There are two issues here: the lead and the horn. You might note from the photos on line and in books that the horn is usually missing. Or very deteriorated. Horn is organic and is subject to rot. I chose not to use a frame simply because of the modern day fear of lead. Especially since these Hornbooks may - as their predecessors - find their way into the hands of kids. Museum or private gift shops may have a problem with the use of lead, too. I opted instead to use another form of protection which, though not as ancient as cut horn, still goes back about a century and a half: decoupage. There are several techniques used for this process, originally layers of varnish which were dried and sanded. I use a water based sealant, each thin layer polished with steel wool, the last coating cured for a few days, then sanded and polished by steel wool. The water based sealant does not adversely affect the paper, and is extremely durable. This last batch utilised copper tacks to hold the paper in place. There are examples of Hornbooks that do not use frames, thus the use of frames to hold the horn was not universal. Personally, I think the Hornbook looks better without a frame, which tended too be too large for the diminutive size of the book itself.

Who buys Hornbooks these days? So far, it's been a matter of letting folks know what a Hornbook even is! What used to be a ubiquitous part of childhood has now slipped from social memory. So far, Museums, folks who like Colonial and Early American accents for their homes, Home Schoolers and some private schools have been interested or have placed orders. Although, admittedly, I don't ask. But the niche market I am aiming at would be the above. The gift shop attached to the Oldest Schoolhouse in Old St. Augustine, Fl. has expressed interest in carrying these Hornbooks. Thus, as folks become aware of the Hornbook, I suspect more folks may wish to have one. The chalk-and-slate board of your great grandfather would have been the "Hornbook" of it's era. Both carry the same early schooltime aura and legacy. Heh, just thinking about it, I used a slate and chalk pencils made by Pelikan when I went to primary school in Germany in the middle 1960s! The slate was ruled on one side, quadrille on the other. That's where I got my history-streak!

Hope this page has been a little more point specific and helpful.

Good Providence in all your endeavours!

-gary

Hornbook Production Part 3: Finishing the Process

2010-04-17T19:22:00.007-04:00

One popular wood used in the period of the American Revolution was cherry. Clear Pine actually bears a grain resemblance to cherry, so cherry stain seems appropriate. The eight blanks stained very nicely. Funny how that even though these blanks were cut from the same cut of Clear Pine, each one looks different from the other. There are no two Hornbooks alike.

Just like soldiers at attention. Took me the better part of Tuesday Afternoon to get through all these, and another few hours to sufficiently dry. One thing that I noticed that I thought was odd: usually, stain raises the grain fibre. This is why a lot of the New England cabinet makers used to wet down their wood, then sand. The carpenter that I learnt from called it the "hackle". Raised grain is a raised Hackle. These blanks had no raised Hackle after staining. Thus, re-sanding after the staining was minimal.

Very satin smooth. It pays to work with good woods. The stain is darker on the end-cuts, naturally, owing to stain absorption.

The next step is to apply the copper nails and printed text. Now, here is where I depart from the original Hornbooks by necessity: the original Colonial Hornbooks used a Leaden Frame and a small sheet of Horn for the covering. I could have done the leaden framing, BUT . . . I am offering these Hornbooks to Homeschoolers, Public Schools and Museum / Private gift shops. I do not wish to run afoul the FDA or the State of Florida, or expose any of my clients to any potential health risk related litigation. So, the Lead Framing is omitted in favour of a non toxic water based sealant that applies like Envirotex, but must be painstakingly applied in thin layers, sanded, re-coated, sanded, re-coated, at least six, and as much as ten layers. This process is called Decoupage, and is in itself a process that goes back about a century and a quarter.

This is the Decoupaging process line, taking up a part of my kitchen. The front, top, bottom, and sides of both paddle and handle are coated and dried for half an hour. After the half hour, the layer is steel wooled or sanded. After the coatings are built up to my satisfaction, they are wet sanded, and polished with steel wool. The whole process can take about three days, unless you dedicate an entire day, sun-up to sun-down, then it might take two days.

Here is a closeup shot of the "cross row", showing part of the Lower Case and Upper Case rows. The paper is behaving, and actually starting to appear like "skinside" Vellum! The Sealant is giving the paper an almost translucent effect and "floating" the printed images similarly to how pounced vellum gives an almost floating effect to gall-iron based inks.

Here is a close-up of the Pineapple Border motif. This font came from Quaker City Type Foundry of Honeybrook Pennsylvania. Bill Reiss has awesome turnaround and a great selection of classical figures and ornaments. Another foundry that I use is the foundry that - according to the old Hall of Printing that used to be at the Smithsonian - supplied both them AND Colonial Williamsburg, M&H Foundry, San Fransisco, California. Much of my "house-founts" come from both M&H and Quaker City. The tall "s" that you see is an M&H casting.

There you go. Tall 's' figures. I secretly wish that I could use them in all my publications, but the 21st Century eye gets tripped up by them. In fact, so did the 20th and the 19th century eye, they dropped this convention right around 1800. This was also the time that Caslon began to fall out of favour with American Printers, being substituted with the less delicate, bolder Bodoni faces.

Well, I am now about one week into these Hornbooks, the last remaining step of the process is the wet sanding, polishing, and labeling on the reverse with my logo, signature and production number. These are, of course, limited edition publications, and I treat them as any other limited edition piece.

Stay tuned.

-gary

Hornbook Production Part 2.

2010-04-13T16:18:00.006-04:00

This is the completed Forme. There were several edits, one 'd' was inserted upside down, a few coppers had to be inserted into one of the 'Criss Crosses' to enable a tight lock-up. Oh, heh, yeah, I forgot one of the letters of the alphabet. Figures.

This is the chase lock-up. You cannot tighten the lock-up too much or too little. Two little and the forme spills, and you have a very frustrating pied pile under the press . . . in the oil. Too tight, and you can potentially warp your chase such that it cannot rest level against the press' type bed. BTW, you Kelsey aficionados: notice what I am using as an imposing surface for my 8x12 chases? None other than the type bed of a 9x13 Kelsey. Best portable imposing "stone" I've ever had. And the rails serve as convenient handles!

Here is the progress in mid-run. I have one copy laying on one of the unfinished blanks to serve as a sizer. There have been some design changes in this batch of Hornbooks to bring it nearer to it's 17th Century origins.

A closer look at the unfinished blank and print resting atop. This gives me a pretty good idea of the finished product. One consideration is the placement of the nails that hold the sheet. It cannot be too close to the edge of the wood, and must also be slightly angled inward.

There are three design changes. First, notice the pineapple border. While more prevalent in the Maritime and Southern Colonies, even in the Port of Boston, the Pineapple represented a symbol of hospitality. It enjoyed coast-wide use in printing, embellishment on festoons, pediments on houses, etc. The second change was the addition of the crosses. This is a significant inclusion in that these "printer's crosses" were almost universally used on Hornbooks, even in Europe. These crosses were built up from the upper case letter 'I', either locked together with quads around an ornament as seen here, or mitred together. These were known as "Christ Crosses", which over the years became called the "Criss Cross". At least one appeared at the top, usually before the first letter 'A'. Many used two, bracketing the alphabet in a more pleasing symmetry. The third change is the upper case 'O', using instead a more authentic 24pt. Caslon upper case letter. As mentioned, on my last run of Hornbooks (which was my first run, produced before I had more research information) - I used an ornamental 36pt. Goudy monotyped ornamented 'O'. The letter is beautiful. But it dates to 1920. Not very colonial.

Today is printing day. I'll be running as many of these as I can. The next stage will be staining the blanks. After that, the mounting and decoupaging of each Hornbook. Then they go to the client(s).

Stay Tuned.

-gary

Q5 Studio and Pretty Good Letterpress
wd4nka@aim.com

Another Hornbook Production.

2010-04-13T11:15:00.005-04:00

Another production run of authentic early American Hornbooks! After receiving an order for four, I decided to do an actual production run. What is a production run? Well, for one thing, it involves me putting on my woodworker's hat and locating the proper wood. Since these books typically took a student through all their early years of primary education, the wood has to be somewhat durable. But to keep costs down, I have to find a cost effective wood stock that would be both affordable for the client, yet durable for use. In a sense, in my mind's eye, I see these "books" as actually being used for their intended purpose. In this case, I traditionally use clear pine. Not construction grade, but furniture grade.

The process begins with cutting the wooden "blanks", which involves three basic processes: (1) cutting the wood into 3.5 by 8 inch squares. (2) Then running these squares through an angled table saw to notch out the handles. (3) Then sanding. What this photo shows are the blanks cut, but not filed and sanded as of yet. The sanding takes the longest time. After this, I might add a fourth procedure, that of staining the wood if called for. Sealing waits until the text is nailed to the blank, whereupon the whole is decoupaged together. Originally, animal horn was heated, separated, cut and affixed over the text with a lead frame held in place by nails. I omit the lead because these are being offered to schools. As it is, many of the samples I've seen used nails only without the frame, so either way is authentic. Animal horn is subject to decay and rot - which is why the actual 300 year old specimens that exist are almost never intact. Thus, I use a decoupage process which is safer, longer lasting, yet retains the look of antiquity. The nails used with this run are copper. Iron was used as well as brass rivets, but copper oxidizes with that ancient greenish tinge, which is classic. These will age very nicely. Especially as the wood reddens with age.

At this point of the process, I begin the composition of the text which will be eventually printed and affixed to these blanks. The font used is authentic to the era, an early 18th Century Caslon, supplied by M&H Type Foundry, San Fransisco. The type is composed in three sections, or "charges". When the composition stick fills, the type is removed and lined up on a "galley" tray. After all the charges are compiled, and are ready to be mounted into the press's chase - which is an iron frame that holds the type in place - the assemblage is called a 'Forme'.

This is the first charge. Two more to come. The tool on the left is a slug cutter, which trims leads to the proper width.

This is a photo of the blanks and the finished product which I ran back in the early 1990s when I owned and operated "Heirloom Press" out of Palm Harbor, Florida. The design on these new Hornbooks will differ slightly to incorporate the "Printer's Cross", or the "Christ Cross", which became known as the "Criss Cross". These are crosses composed of four upper case 'I's, sometimes mitred, or sometimes composed together with a centre ornament. Also, the upper case letter 'O' in the Lord's Prayer is more authentic. Formerly, I used an ATF Goudy ornamental cap from 1920. This go 'round, I'm using a 24pt Caslon Capital, of the same era as the rest of the composition. Of course I include the archaic tall 's', which looks like an 'f'. These were used prior to 1800, a throwback to the ancient blackletter types. The tall 's' was used for the letter 's' at the beginning and middle of a word, never at the end.

That's were I am now. Printing will commence on the following day. It is a complex composition which can take a long time to arrange so it holds together in the chase without spilling out. It's a skill the curve of which I still reside. All in all, these eight Hornbooks should take me about five days to produce, including the various drying times. But it is worth it.

Hornbooks represent to me not only a valuable and important part of United States History and the first Colonial Societies that laid the foundations of our representative Republican Democracy, but also a product made in the United States, made using the original and authentic processes with American materials, using vintage iron presses, using a time honoured process requiring an unusual amount of attention and care to produce a quality product. This was the Hallmark of American Industry at one time. I intend to perpetuate that legacy. Q5 Letterpress' Hornbooks will never be made in China!

That's it for now. More to come. Stay tuned!

Good Providence to you in all your endeavours!

-gary

Q5 Studio & Pretty Good Letterpress
G. Johanson, Printer

"Old School" Designing for Letterpress

2010-03-25T01:22:00.006-04:00

The project on the board right now is creating a scalable vector image of the main building of the Florida Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts. This would be used for anything from Stationery Letterhead to Name Badges to Greeting Cards. Initially I sought for line art already created. Surely in the past one hundred years of this structure's history somebody did some sort of high contrast (pen and ink, likely) rendering. But all I could find was a hopelessly re-photocopied image that was of no use for conversion to Vector.

So . . . I was on my own.

I did a photo-shoot of the place in an attempt to capture the heavily tree shaded building's very unique front and cupola without so many tree branches in the way. It was nigh unto impossible. I had to shoot images closer than my design requirements. So just shooting black and whites, running them through a Cut Line Filter or some other photoshop trick to produce tertiary shades of gray out of dots, cross hatch lines or stipples were out.

So it was up to me using some good old tools I haven't touched in years: India Ink, Paper and my trusty fine tipped Rapidograph. For those who are not familiar with the Rapidograph pen: these were commercial artists bread and butter tools at one time. They are essentially hypodermic needles with a sort of piston inside which, when pressed tip down on the drawing surface, releases a quantity of ink from a pre-loaded cartridge.

So, with these basic but time tried tools, I stepped back to 1974 when I actually made money doing these sort of things. I was a calligrapher and free lance commercial artist. My last gig was illustrating a technical handbook up in Chicago back around 1991.

In the photo above you have tracing paper, Rapidograph pen, kneeded eraser, mechanical pencil (soft) and a cork-bottom steel rule. I won't be using Bristol Board this go-round because were not doing camera-ready art, were doing scanner ready art for vectorising.

I did a direct trace of the main elements of the building. This would serve as a sort of framework for the ink fill, which will be the really time consuming part of the project.

This is the photo that I used.

You can click on each photo for a larger image. So, this was Night One, laying out and tracing the image. Night Two, (tonight) was laying on the ink. I am using a combination of different strokes, primarily stipple rendering, essencially very small dots which are concentrated or spread out to give the effect of tones of grey. Not unlike half-tone dots. For some of the denser fields I make use of direct line and hatching.

Above is a close up of the rendering. So much of pen and ink drawing is simply suggesting an object rather then contour drawing of it. It's what you do not draw that matters. My technique almost omits any highlight rendering, but rather I fill the shaded areas only. This adds a dimension of "believability" to a pen and ink image.

Above is what I managed tonight. About 40% of the ink is laid down. About four hours worth of work, plus one pot of coffee. The final two shots below are just other perspectives of the same thing.

I am largely sharing these just to let folks know - in case they are interested and wondering - that good old fashioned hand rendering on artboard or Bristol board with india ink is still alive and well . . . at least at Q5 Studio and Pretty Good Letterpress, anyway. Another reason is to give you a peak into a little bit of how we "did it" in the past, as far as copy work prepared before the Computer Era. Of course, I use digital techniques as well, it's a great tool. But sometimes it just pays to grab a pen and "do it yourself". Keeps you in practice, too.

I may add one more note for those of you who think that computers have rubbed you out of relativity. I met a man who runs a company here in Central Florida, who designs props for Hollywood, specifically Steven Spielberg. He hires designers. He told me that before he hires a "graphic artist" that knows everything about Illustrator and In Design and Quark or FreeHand, he first sets them down at a drawing board and has them render - by hand - something. If they can't draw, he doesn't hire them, MFA or not! He told me that it starts with the hand and eye. If you can't design with the hand and eye using basic tools on paper, you will be lacking if you depend on the computer to make up for the deficit. So chin-up, fellow Old School Rapido-jockeys! There is need for you yet!

I will continue posting the progress on this project, all the way through the finished piece, doing the vector work (fingers crossed), sending the digital off to the Platers and receiving and running the final project.

Stay tuned!

-gary

Behind the 7x11 Pearl OS Model 3

2010-03-23T20:38:00.004-04:00

This installment is specifically to provide some details of the Pearl for a Fellow Printer who is in the process of restoring a Pearl. What you will see is the rear mechanism. On the back of the roller casting there is a lever upon which the base of the pawl shaft rests upon. It acts as a sort of cam which moves the pawl shaft foward. This in turn moves the pawl up, engages the ratchet teeth at the base of the ink disk, rotating it about one degree.

My Aussie Blue Heeler will serenade you as we go along. She hates it when I'm in the shop and she's not.

Here are some still shots, including one with the ink disk removed. Also, as a note, the only place that a spring is located on my press is the chase clamp. It anchors to the neck casting with receives the ink disk.

I hope these images are helpful, Rachel.

Good Providence in all your Letterpress endeavours!

-gary

Q5 Studio and Pretty Good Letterpress

Q5 Studios Resurrects the QSL Postal Label

2010-03-16T22:23:00.007-04:00

Ok, so I have way too much time on my day off, apparently. I spent a good part of the day designing the tee-shirt for the Central Florida Pregnancy Center's "Walk for Life". As long as I had FreeHand up and running, why not see what we can do with that frame I made up for Q5 Studio.

So, what's a QSL? Firstly, "QSL" is the International Code signal for "Confirmation of Receipt of Message". In other words "Yeah, I heard ya". Now, the thing you must know about Radio History is that from the beginning, wireless communications was a grass-roots thing. Yes, it's true that Marconi had the British Navy equipped with wireless by 1898 and managed to sneak the letter "S" across the Atlantic in 1903. But all during this time, wireless circuits had been published and copied by Hobbyists the world over. In fact these "Amateurs" began to organise, and by the time the Titanic went down, Amateur Radio was firmly rooted, with the U.S. Dept. of the Navy issuing code endorsements. Amateur Wireless operators began to establish themselves on the cutting edge of radio technology, and by the time of the closing of the First World War became seen as an important public service.

As equipment improved - largely due to developments by Hams - so did distances wireless signals could both travel, and be heard. As standard radio frequency allocations placed Amateurs on what became known as the Short Waves, Continental and International communications became not only possible, but eventually - common place.

When one station contacted another station, it became a tradition to send a Post Card confirming the contact. These cards contained information regarding time and date of contact, the frequency used, the condition of the signal, the equipment used, and maybe some personal comments and greeting. These became known as "QSL Cards", and date as far back as the first decade of the 20th Century.

Most of the early QSL cards were printed by Letterpress. Sometimes a standard post card was used with the addition of a special QSL Label. As international trading of QSL cards began to become voluminous, QSL "Bureaus" were organised as a central collection and re-distribution point. Hams would subscribe to these Bureaus which could be a Radio Club sponsored endeavour or a National Organisation operation such as the American Radio Relay League, the roots of which go back to 1914. QSL stamps were often affixed to the envelopes that contained QSL cards sent out to recipients. Thus we have privately produced QSL Labels - or Stamps - being utilised by both private radio stations, commercial stations, QSL Bureaus and Wireless Organisations.

There were other para-postal ephemera that found their way onto the mails. The Ham Radio version of the Telegramme is the Radiogramme, which at one point in time was one of the fastest ways of getting communication in or out of any region. Disaster areas in particular. Radiogrammes were typed up on special stationery, and were usually hand delivered to the recipient. Sometimes a label may have been affixed, corresponding to the old Telegraph Receipt and Commutation stamps of the 19th Century. I've seen only one in the flesh, myself. Heh, in fact, it may have been mine. Oh well . . . .

Shortwave Listeners - who were not licensed Amateurs in that their hobby involved only listening and logging the signals they could pull out of the Ether with their usually hand-made receivers - would send reception reports to Short Wave stations and receive in return a QSL Card from the commercial (or otherwise) station in return. At one point, Domestic and some foreign broadcast stations issued "EKKO" stamps. These were beautifully engraved designs executed by the American Banknote Company - a company that at one time produced regular postal issues for the United States Post Office Department.

This particular specimen is typographed. Letterpress Printed.

This is and example of an EKKO stamp. Both of these come from Fort Wayne's "WOWO". When the sun goes down you can still hear this Clear Channel powerhouse just about anywhere east of the Mississippi. Brings back a lot of memories.

Ok, one more design from Q5. See those wires on the ship? This was wireless in the heyday of Spark, when a radio signal sounded like a medium-pitched buzz sent at a code cadence. Some of these big bruisers ran several Kilowatts of raw spark. Talk about ozone! When Debernet et Cie. engraved this center cut in 1910, a radioman's position was a guaranteed Officers Commission. They used to call him "Sparks".

That's all for today. Another eccentric post and another piece of oddball history.
Welcome to my world.

Good providence in all your endeavours, and give a listen on the old AM Broadcast band one clear night. You might find yourself unexpectedly entertained. And hooked!

-gary

G. Johanson, Printer
Q5 Studios and Pretty Good Letterpress

The American Colonial Hornbook

2010-03-15T15:56:00.012-04:00

"In 1647 the Massachusetts government passed a law requiring that all towns except very small ones must provide schools for the children. This was the first law of its kind passed in the colonies or in Europe. The law began by stating that in the past it had been 'one chief point of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from a knowledge of Scriptures . . . by keeping them in an unknown tongue . . .' To encourage reading and to prevent learning from 'being buried in the grave of our fathers', the Massachusetts ['Old Deluder Law'] ordered: 1 - That every town having fifty householders or more should at once appoint a teacher of reading and writing and pay him out of town funds, and 2 - That every town having one hundred householders or more must provide a school good enough to prepare young men for entering a college or pay a penalty for failure to do so."

(Rise of the American Nation, 2nd Ed., Lewis P. Todd & Merle Curit, Publ: Harcourt, Brace, World, (c) 1966 . vid page 80.)

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was simply carrying on an Old World tradition. The "entry" years of education always involved "reading, writing, and cyphering". Over the years, simple visual aids had been developed to assist in these basic elements of primary education. Even during the Dark Ages, a simple condensation of Alphabet, Cypher, Phonetics and Scripture (which provided the main impetus for literacy in Europe) was used as the first introduction to literacy. Engraved in soft metals, wood, ivory, vellum, later printed on paper and mounted on wood, these visual aids served as the first text "books" for formal education. By the 1600's, the most popular of these items were the "chap book", and what we are focusing on now, the "Hornbook".

The traditional form of the Hornbook resembles a small paddle, no doubt helpful to the teachers. After the introduction of printing, the local printer would set the alphabet, upper and lower case, simple phonetic exercises, and then scripture. Usually the "Lord's Prayer" was used. The term "Hornbook" derives from the covering used to shield the printed text on paper from the elements. The artisan would take horn from the animal and heat it until it became pliable. Horn has somewhat a laminate property, and under heat horn "layers" can be stripped into thin sheets. These in turn were cut to size and mounted over the printed text upon the broad, flat area of the "paddle". Some examples still retain the leaden "frame" that was often used to secure the horn and paper to the board. Over the years the horn rotted away. I have not seen any examples of Hornbooks which still has the horn intact.

Often, a Cross appeared in the upper left hand corner of the page. This is nicknamed the "Criss-Cross" or 'Christ Cross'. Some called it the Printers Cross, made from four mitred capital "I"s. It must be remembered that for many hundreds of years it was the Church that sponsored any sort of public education, hence the Biblical emphasis. This carried over to the Colonies, where a formal education was highly valued by Puritans, Congregationalists, German Lutherans and Swiss Brethren followers of Jacob Amman (the Amish) or the Dunkers and Schwenkfelders. Some of the old German publications in my collection mention the fear of having Civilisation dying with them in the deep dark woods of "Pennsylvanien". These groups were the founders of American Public Education. Literacy enables Freedom and secures the blessings of Liberty.

When my daughter began her schooling, I thought it might be neat to make a Hornbook for her, especially since I had a small Letterpress shop with a larger Iron Handpress, a front lever Kelsey 9x13. So following the model I had, which was a photograph of one of the 1600's era Bay Colony types, I made a number of them, most of which by now have been handed off. One is on display at the Florida Pioneer Settlement. I kept two myself, which I use in the following photos which shows different perspectives of my own version.

My Hornbooks are made with either Clear Pine, Red Oak or Poplar. They measure three and one-half inches in width, and eight inches from top to the bottom of the handle. These particular examples were printed on hand made paper, held in place by iron tacks. Instead of using horn, which really isn't a good idea, I take advantage of Decoupage, which not only seals the printed page to the wood, but also seals the wood itself. It will not deteriorate like Horn will, yet retains a sort of "vintage" lustre. The pages are hand printed using a font which was in common use during the time in which many of these Hornbooks would have been used.

Here is a closeup of the top part of the Hornbook page. What amazes me is how practical these fore-runners to School Textbooks really were. I was able to teach my daughter from just what you see right here! And just what was the quality of elementary education in 1730? Anyone who collects children's texts from the past two hundred years can tell you: very high. My wife, who possesses a Masters Degree in Education has described my Childrens Botany Textbook for twelve year old readers as absolutely college level today. The depth of thought, the level in which the language is handled, an amazingly high level for pre-teens. Perhaps they had more focus due to less distraction than we today? Southern General Thomas Jackson funded a school to teach children of slaves to read and write in the early 1860s. Yes, that's right, Stonewall Jackson. His sister was a teacher. Apparently a lot of high money friends contributed to provide a very high level of education.

Funny how they don't teach this in modern Public School History. Maybe we need Mrs. Jackson to teach today?

The above photo shows one of my pine Hornbooks stained with a Walnut stain. Sometimes the ends of the handles are drilled out to receive a leather strap. For those who were interested in the Hornbooks I make, I can provide a recess on the back to make it possible to hang these on a wall for display.

As you can see, I have a "Colonial Room" which houses my photo and part of my book collection. The Hornbooks are right at home here, although in reality their place is in the Living room entertainment unit next to my maple woodcut of a 16th century village which I cut at the same time I made these Hornbooks. That photo on the left? An 1849 mirror daguerreotype still in it's original gilt hinged folding frame. I have some 1860's tintypes behind it, and some of my school textbook collection is on the right. The desk is a hand made pine "spinet".

The subject of Hornbooks is very interesting, and you can learn a lot just perusing the internet or your local library (please support your local library! No firewall needed to read a book!) And if anyone is interested, I am planning to produce Hornbooks again. As far as I know, there are not many producers of these historical items using authentic means and authentic methods. All of my Hornbooks are hand cut, hand printed from handset type onto either handmade rag-stock paper or lignin free natural fibre papers that do not require trees to fall. For printing, I use one of two platen presses, either my C&P or my 1870's era Pearl Old Style Model 3.

If you are interested in obtaining one of my Hornbooks, drop me an e-Mail at:
wd4nka@aim.com

Or write - that's right, pen and ink (or typewriter or word processor) to:

Gary Johanson
Q5 Studio and Pretty Good Letterpress
1125 Elgrove Drive
Deltona, Florida, 32725.

That's it for this installment. Good Providence in all your endeavours!

I remain you most obedient servant
G. Johanson, Printer

Philatelic Art : More designs

2010-03-02T12:02:00.009-05:00

Adding to the prior post, here are a few other designs inspired by Philately. These are called "Cutsquares", after the old method of collecting envelope stamps by literally cutting them out of the envelope (cringe!) leaving a quarter-inch margin all around them. If anyone out there still collects postal stationery, please please please leave the whole postal card or envelope intact! They will be far more interesting and the value will be maximised. And most of all, you will be preserving a bit more of a quickly disappearing history!

These "essays" are based on the designs of George Reay, namesake of his publishing firm that won the contract to produce postal stationery for the United States Post Office Department for four years, 1870 - 74. He hired the most skilled engravers he could find internationally, and the designs executed were so precision and so marvellous to behold that the Reay covers are called "Cameos". George lost the contract in 1875 to the Plimpton Publishing Company, who for several years could only print poor imitations of the Reay stamps. It got so bad that the USPOD ordered George to turn over his dies to Plimpton. He feigned in so doing, but actually gave the real dies to his wife with instructions to crack each plate and toss them overboard from the Staten Island Ferry. George died soon thereafter. It took Plimpton almost 12 years, three consecutive contracts, to catch up to Reay's quality and precision. Has anyone ever recovered those dies? No. They were copper, and more than likely gone to the elements.

The top photo was intended for Radio QSL Card stationery. These are aimed at Amateurs who like vintage, still use old style Radiograms typed from Remingtons and pound brass from a Bug. They like old style QSL cards and B&W photos of their stations equipped with racks of "Boat Anchors". Design adapted from the Reay 2c issue, 1871. Washington's silhouette is not embossed in detail. Just the white outline is seen. The idea is to suggest, not perfectly reproduce. Besides, George is probably already doing three-sixties at me borrowing his designs at all!

The second design is an adaptation of a Reay frame and "Columbia", redrawn from the 1875 Post Card design. She's Columbia, although her tiara says "Liberty". She borrowed it.

The third photo shows the Reay frame with an ATF cut of Athena (I think) in reversal. She was vectored directly from the 1915 ATF specimen book.

That's it for now. Believe it or not, there's more. I have some multi-colour Christmas Seals adapted from the 1933 designs on the drawing board, too. That's for another time.

Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavours!

-gary / Q5.

Philatelic Art : Q5 Studio

2010-03-01T18:54:00.005-05:00

Thought I might share my new Logo for my Studio: Q-5. "Q-5" is a radio communication term for "Highest Quality". If you received a very loud and very nice signal, you would respond "Q-5, S-9!". I want to carry that same highest quality sensitivity over into my printing, publishing and graphic design endeavours.

The design is adapted from the United States Regular Postal Issue of the early to mid 1920s. I love these classic designs, with the crocus leaf flourishes and the heavy engraved cross hatching. The design is a total redraw, executed on FreeHand MX. I tried to do a vector conversion from the two-cent Harding issue which I have mint, thinking that since the stamp is the only dense black colour of the issue, I may have enough contrast to do a direct vector.

No such luck.

So I did a direct sizing of the basic stamp geometry on a .jpg image of the 1/2c. Nathan Hale issue, also mint, and spent the next 48-odd hours re-drawing the entire stamp, line by line, it was a heavy duty session on the digi-art board. The crocus leaves took as long to re-draw as it would have taken me to engrave (yes, I do engraving, too.) Those crocus flourishes were a separate project unto themselves.

The runner comes courtesy the Derbeney Co. of Paris, 1898. It was originally a woodcut. I thought it would look appropriate for a design based on Philatelic Art. My plan is to run these on both my card, my stationery, and maybe even run them as plate-blocks. They are two colour, the centre will always be black. The frame may vary.

I started collecting stamps when I was five years old, and I attribute my love of history, geography, graphic design and printing entirely to my affection for stamp collecting. I don't have a very large collection, mostly Classical Era US, British and German, plus some of my favourite French Art Deco designs from 1870 - 1930. Also fascinating are the Postzegeln (stamps) of Nederland. What collection wouldn't be complete without Queen Wilhelmina and Queen Juliana gracing the pages?

I'll share more of my Philatelic designs as time permits.

Good Providence in ALL your Letterpress endeavours!

-gary, Q5.

A Business Card for the Good Doctor

2010-02-25T23:48:00.006-05:00

This is a seven minute video showing highlights of the production of a two colour business card for the Doctor at our Dispensary. The video begins showing the cards with the first colour, black, already printed. They have been setting for forty-eight hours. Now we pick up with adding the blue American Optometric Association Logo and horizontal bar, printed in process blue. The logo was drawn on my PC's FreeHand IDE, and transfered to Adobe Illustrator CS4 for the addition of the Optima and Helvetica Neu fonts which reside on my Power Mac G-4.

This video shows the second (blue) dye, the process of make-ready, setting registration, and the actual running of the job. I suspect that the process shown will be somewhat obvious, so I did not feel the need for a boring and verbose narrative. Hence, I went with a sound track written specifically for this video.

The sound track you will hear is a song called "The Printer and His Devil". Each verse alludes to a historic event. Can you guess the sequence? I'll give you a hint, it starts with the closing of the Port of Boston, 1775. The vocal is by your's truly, and for those keeping count or are interested in technical aspects of the recording, it was cut on five tracks: Guitar 1, Guitar2, Harp ( Hohner Marine Band, G) , Synth pad bass line (Kurzweil PC-88) and vocal. Mastered at Q-5 on a Zoom MPS-1608CD 16ch. HD workstation, courtesy Josh Rustin. I play all instrumentals. Board time was six hours.

I will include the lyrics below.

I hope you enjoy "A Business Card for the Good Doctor" and the sound-track "The Printer & His Devil".

The Printer and His Devil © 2009, G. Johanson

The Printer and his Devil – Are working late tonight
Word came not so very long ago
borne on ships by men in red, a’coming to our shores
. . . the Printer thought that you would like to know . . .

The Printer and his Devil – Are working late tonight
News had come not very long ago
That Washington is burned, but Dolly saved a memory
. . . the Printer thought that you would like to know . . .

So plane the Forme and cut the Frisket –
Pull the Devil’s Tail
For a Towne without a Printer
is like a ship without a sail
The Midnight Oil is burning in
the Printer’s Shop tonight
. . . the Printer thought that you would like to know . . .

The Printer and his Devil – Are working late tonight
A packet came not very long ago
A cannon shot in Charleston took Old Glory from the sky
. . . the Printer thought that you would like to know . . .

The Printer and his Devil – Are working late tonight
A dispatch had arrived not long ago
A pistol shot, a frantic chase – had brought the curtain down
. . . the Printer thought that you would like to know . . .

So plane the Forme and cut the Frisket –
Pull the Devil’s Tail
For a Towne without a Printer
is like a ship without a sail
The Midnight Oil is burning in
the Printer’s Shop tonight
. . . the Printer thought that you would like to know . . .

The Printer and his Devil – Are working late tonight
For a cable came not long ago
The S-O-S that went unheard and ice upon the sea
. . . the Printer thought that you would like to know

The Printer and his Devil – Are working late tonight
The Teleprinter spoke not long ago
A sudden shock, a sudden war, a Harbor known as Pearl
. . . the Printer thought that you would like to know

So plane the Forme and cut the Frisket –
Pull the Devil’s Tail
For a Towne without a Printer
is like a ship without a sail
The Midnight Oil is burning in
the Printer’s Shop tonight
. . . the Printer thought that you would like to know . . .

Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavours!

-gary

G. Johanson, Printer

Thoughts on Re-Publishing for Web Dissemination.

2010-02-11T13:46:00.004-05:00

This was written largely for members of the Regenerx Listgroup, which I believe to be the world's largest radio listgroup wholly dedicated to the use of the Regenerative Circuit for wireless reception. But some of the below comments may come in handy for other endeavours which involve the use of long out of print literature or published artwork (or music.)

******************************************************

Ok, here's my novel-length thoughts on re-publishing articles and other parts of literature in whole or in part for web dissemination in a non-profit atmosphere. The Law calls it Re-Distribution, and cares not whether it is for profit or no. Get that straight off. The Judge will not care if you made or did not make any money. Rights of Copy deals with copy and dissemination, or distribution. Those civil issues enter into the settlement phase, IIRC. I've not had to go through this phase, so no first hand knowledge there.

When I started this group back in 2004, my intention was to seek permission for us to republish by re-posting old regenerative-based articles for our references from a number of publications, including the ARRL. Apparently some list-groups (I'll not mention who) either believe they have obtained - or have indeed secured - permission to re-publish and re-post to their respective groups articles from out of the 1920s, 1930s, etc. QSTs and Handbooks.

I attempted to secure such from the League: I was turned down flat, and rather unceremoniously. Since their description of us equates to every other radio newsgroup I've had party to, I wonder just who really has bonafide permission.

Anyway, I let it drop, no problem. And no insult taken, certainly. We were a small group at the time, about 20 members. I can't say I would have responded differently, in fact, had the shoe been on the other foot. I just concluded "We'll get by."

I got an entirely different response, however, from the editor of CQ as I asked permission to reprint articles from Ham Radio Horizons, a former HR publication absorbed by CQ. And here is where I got my first dose of the publishing world and copyrights.

His response went something like this: We (CQ) ourselves are not entirely clear what we can republish from our own [merged] archives. Many of the articles printed over the years, especially from those defunct publications such as HRH, had "One-Time" publishing rights, meaning that once the article was published, the rights of copy revert back to the author. Such is the case with anything ever published by Bill Orr. His Heirs and Assigns [or whomever currently holds rights of copy] perpetuate the W6SAI Industry, and keep close and jealous guard over everything Bill wrote as far back as the E&E handbooks of the late 1930s! These copyrights are renewable, **and are renewed**. Therefore you may find an Orr article from 1946. Leave it alone. Under discussion, specifically, was the use of those very insightful articles Bill wrote for Ham Radio Horizons, and later Ham Radio Report, "Those Old Radio Days", I believe they were entitled.

The Ed. perused our list and my personal site, and contacted me later saying that in his opinion, we are a non profit educational group, and I have a non profit education-drive website. Thus, if I wish to publish by posting an article from said archives, to contact him first, let them go over the story and the' legaleeze' - who possesses rights of copy - and wait for the green flag. And, of course, I honour that.

He also parted a few kind compliments, which I have kept with me.

An interesting article written by Nagel appeared in HRH sometime back in the mid 1970s, called "Those Great Old Radio Mags" or something like that. In this article, the author notes that many of those high profile authors wrote on the sly for other magazines. Same goes for the artists and artwork. This further confuses the landscape. Case in point: I believe ARRL owns rights of copy for all Phil Gildersleeve cartoons, which are absolute classics. (They or Gil's heirs and assigns own the copyrights. Somebody does.) Now, do they only own those printed in League Publications? Ahh, good question, for you see Gil also illustrated "Scratchi" for "Radio" magazine, a major and often antagonistic competitor to QST back in the day! (Vid "Scratchi". Radio, March 1937.)

Can I get my posterior parked in the dock over re-printing the 1929 article on the Bearcat Model B-3? (Vid QST, August, 1929) Yup. Not only can I, but if I persist, I SHALL.

Thus, when it comes to the world of publication, mergers, who purchased what company, etc., walk very carefully when it comes to republishing. Now, can you get in a jam over reprinting a SWC article on the Doerle? Will Fredrick Collins come after you for posting from his Handbook from 1933? Maybe not, but I'll bet Crowell Publications, NY, NY. will! As Regards Short Wave Craft, Hugo Gernsback has been out of business for years, and I don't know if anybody picked up the (c) on these articles or allowed them to lapse into Public Domain.

Best advice I can give in these cases is to follow all crediting protocol, make sure you give author, dates, when published, and the purpose of your publication. Cover yourself so if the day comes you face a judge, you can say that using accepted U&C (Usual and Customary Procedure) you, to the best of your resources and understanding, thought the article to be PD. I doubt malicious intent would be levied, more than likely a simple cessation of publication would be requested and complied with. I wish I could guarantee that. But I can't.

Do not copy a previously republished article. If someone has already done that, and it's seen print, you can bet there's a (c) somewhere. Unless you know that it's definately Public Domain, and it should say so somewhere on the reprint.

As a printer and publisher myself (G. Johanson, Letterpress) I deal with this issue fairly often. I reprint old designs and philatelic art from the 1930s and prior for custom stationery. I locate my own designs from original 19th and early 20th century publications, or base designs from them.

It's an eggwalk! Would you believe a 90-year old Red Cross Christmas Seal may still have copyright protection?? Whoo, yeah boy! I even had to investigate Emily Bissel's 1907 design for our 100th anniversary reprint of the first American Red Cross Christmas Seal (1907 - 2007) The Delaware Valley chapter of the American Red Cross chose not to - or neglected to - renew their rights of copy. Slipped into PD. Yay!! Heh, but my re-design of the original for the centenial IS under (c). Not that anyone is losing sleep over it.

Oh, reprints are available for collectors, btw.

Even some of those classic old QSL card designs have a (c) hovering over them! (Most, fortunately, do not or can be sufficiently modified so as to retain their vintageness and still look very 1920-ish.)

The above is not intended to scare anyone out of trying to preserve those great articles by sharing them - which I consider a worthy endeavour, but to caution that much of what you read
about copyrights can be over generalised and over simplified. Proceed, but with wisdom and caution.

And remember, under law, anything posted to any website, blog or list group is considered publication.

-gary // wd4nka
Listowner, Regenrx.

G. Johanson, Letterpress.

"E-Bay Knights"

2009-12-06T08:33:00.004-05:00

As we go about our Holiday shopping, many will be hitting the on-line auctions. Here is a bit of advice from the Once and Future King Himself, Arthur Pendragon, King of the Britons.

I wrote this for a magazine about six years ago, and since I hold rights of copy, I thought I might republish it here, to help the weary warrior in search of his or her own "Holy Graille" this Christmas, battling lines, bidding on auctions, etc.

Hence: "Ebay Knights", by Gary Johanson.

I wonder how King Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon would challenge his knights of the Round in his appraisal of eBay?

"Fellow knights, might I suggest a frame of mind when it comes to eBay?

'Tis a game. The object is to achieve thine personal "Holy Graille." Thou art given a choice of weapons with which thou mightest overcome strong competitors, hack thru dense forest, and defeat various vile dragons along the way. The brave knight that best, and most wisely uses the weapons at his disposal, wins the "Graille"

Ahh, but ye must first know thyself! Upon whence ye profess this Graille to be worth a certain amount, and ye bid accordingly, and another fellow bids thus greater, and ye become steamed, wert thou honest in thine evaluation of this Graille? Or thyself? Then wherefore art thou steamed?

Ye must also be privy to the tools at hand. Ye must develop some level of skill to be an effective competitor! Know how to launch a javelin, to wield the mace, to block a halbred blow from a snipe by faith in thine appraisal of this Graille: for why shalt thou have this treasure when another fellow values it more? Or art thou greedier than first apprehended?

There is no chivalry, fellow knights, in defeat by the use of superior weaponry, when said weapons were at thine own disposal, and used not: tis a pity to take a blow from cannonage, combatting with thine "traditional" pikes and arrows! Only in the name of "tradition" and yet ye lose the Graille!

Aye, 'tis a fair game. A noble fight, but ye must be in possession of thy weapons, thy skills, and thyself. And most importantly, thy Goal must be worth the price. Godspeed, fellow knights!"

-gary

G. Johanson, Settlement Printer

Yeah, I can do this stuff for other folks, too!

2009-11-19T06:45:00.002-05:00

One of my College dept. guys asked me if I ever print stuff for other folks, like, as a business thing. It suddenly hit me: I just assumed folks understood that. I guess not! Colour me "business-stupid". In fact, over the past year I have been asked a number of questions about what I do with these old Presses and Typographs and copper and mag plates, etc. So here we go with my official "G. Johanson, Printer Frequently Asked Questions List (FAQs)

Q: Can, or Do you print stuff for other folks?
A: Yes. I do.

Q: Do you market yourself?
A: Apparently not. At least, not beyond this Blog.

Q: What sort of printing do you do?

A: Whatever floats my boat. I have a huge history streak, so I gravitate heavily toward handset type, line cuts, laid papers, traditional colours, and presses that run slow. If so inclined, I'll wear silver buckled shoes, knee britches and a powdered wig on St. Bartholemew's Day. Oh, and my trusty German Tricorn.

Q: Do you ever do any Digital Design, Mr. Franklin?
A: Very funny. . . yes, I use two different Digital IDEs, one a PC based system once an industry standard: FreeHand MX4, and also a Mac based system running Adobe Creative Ste 4 (Illustrator) I use Freehand to restore and vectorise antiquated faces from various sources such as the 1000 page ATF sample book of 1915, or woodcut specimens as I happen upon them and they grab my fancy. Beyond that, I also use traditional india ink and Bristol board, scratchboard and cut Linoleum & Wood. Even Plexiglass. I like to use my hands moreso than technology.

Q: Do you do what all the other Letterpresses out there do, like Wedding Stationery, Cute little note cards with fuzzy animals on them, blind embossing, and scanning old Victorian Catalogues into Photoshop, editing out any incriminating evidences of plagiarism, vectorising them and sending off for a polymer plate and call your stuff "original"?
A: No. I don't use Polymer.

Q: Ok, Dr. House. Do you work with other persons designs?
A: Only if the other persons work with me. (yes, I do.)

Q: Do you drink coffee while you print?
A: Are you OSHA or something?

Q: Are you associated with any museums or printing organisations?
A: Yes, NAPA & the Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts, Barberville, Florida. I'm the 19th century printer.

Q: What sort of things can you print on your vintage presses?
A: Just about anything that can be reproduced by "Line" art or Text. "Line Art" means high contrast images - as opposed to continuous tone shades. Those continuous tone images, such as photographs must first be converted into a fine screen half-tone image in order to print. That is more the domain of Offset Printing. Letterpress can do it . . . but the best way is to do photos via photo offset. Line images, pen and ink renderings, cross hatch and stipple shading do quite well rendered via Letterpress Typography. Spot Colour images do well via Letterpress. And, of course, the best text printing ever rendered in the past 550 years of printing has been done so by Letterpress, still the unassailable champion of text and book printing!

Q: What are the different Price Points you offer when printing commision work?
A: Business Card pricing, Post Card/ QSL card pricing, Wedding/ Announcement Card pricing/ General Card/Menu pricing - might be considered price points. I try to keep the current economic climate in mind. Letterpress Printing is literally a hand-produced product, and production thereof is usually considered "Limited Edition". Skill and techniques are ages old and often cannot be taught in schools, but only by experience. For instance, Platen Presses of the type normally used in boutique Letterpress Shops today are not even allowed in Colleges and Universities because of OSHA restraints! Thus, we have all these college degreed Book Arts majors who have never touched a Kluge, a C&P, or a Heidelberg Windmill! They learn on Vandercook Cylinder presses - not a production machine - which is fine (especially for Posters!), but in the "work-a-day" world, most of the typical typographic work is done by the Platen Presses, which offer a different printing dynamic. Yes, there are large shops that use Miehle, Little Giants and other high production cylinder machines - most of us cottage industry printers don't use those, and again, colleges do not use them either. Many grads have never touched a Composition Stick, or have never packed a platen for makeready. All this to say, the time and work involved in learning the process, gaining proficiency, obtaining the tools, the stock, the inks, the type, or doing the design work, having the plating done - results in a fairly high price for Letterpress work. Oh, did I mention quality papers? Paper alone accounts for 30 - 50% of pricing! And proper choice of papers can make - or break - any printing job or project!

Q: Ok, Whatever. So, lets have an example of a price.
A: Jeeesh, wake up, you're snorring. You asked the question, dude! Here we go with an example:

Single colour business card (American Standard Size)
Typeset or Digital die
Crane Lettra, Really white, sorta white or that eggshell coloured thing:
200 cards: $99.00

Two colour or blind emboss (or any other thing that makes me pass the cards through the press twice ) on the above stock 200 cards:
$150.00

You can see an example of a blind emboss diamond logo card I ran on an earlier posting if you peruse back on my blog a few months.

That's just a sample. I price each job individually. I usually do not charge extra for hand-setting of type - it goes into my design fee, which is included in the finish price. Such as the above Business Cards: I include typesetting or digital designing in that number. Add shipping charges, of course.

Q: So, any last comments or remarks?
A: Yes, In due time I intend to set up a regular web site for G. Johanson, Printer, which will have more "marketing" information. Understand, I am really more a tradesman-artist than I'll ever be a businessman. I have had a bad experience with sales guys and marketers which really do not tell either the complete truth or flat out overblow their products. I am obsessed with any client of mine being absolutely satisfied with what they purchase from me, and I'll go to great lengths to keep things affordable as possible. For instance, not every job has to be printed on four-hundred dollar per parent-sheet ream handmade cotton wove stock! In fact, historically, Letterpress can print on darned near anything!! One of my best projects was printed on brown paper wrapper from Wal-Mart!!

Letterpress is a premium venue, and you pay a premium price. But it does not have to wipe out your budget.

Feel free to talk to me, e-mail me, whatever, for more information. I do think it is necessary to work as close to the client as possible, and communication is key. E-mail me at either:

Wd4nka@aim.com
or
Wd4nka@bellsouth.net

Ok, you've just witnessed a guy almost getting into an arguement with himself.
Are artists strange or what?

Printing has been a lifelong passion for me, and it would be a great and fulfilling thing to share it with others, so if you find yourself in the market for specialty printing, and the idea of traditional letterpress typography and hand-wrought design -whether digital or hand-cut - strikes your fancy, look me up.

I promise I'll leave the tricorn in the shop.

-gary

G. Johanson, Printer

Two Videos and Narration describing a Ludlow which I May be Taking On as a Project

2009-11-09T22:16:00.004-05:00

These videos are investigative. I have taken these for Dave Seat, who has been kind enough to give me some pointers in getting started on what may be a complete rehab of a Ludlow Linecaster.

This device creates type by-the-line. Rather than pegging foundry type one letter at a time, with this machine you set matrices, or "mats", which are actually moulds. These mats are set in specially designed "sticks", not unlike Composition sticks in basic principle, but nothing like them in appearance.

Lead chemistry is introduced to the mats, and immediately cooled, producing a line of type, a sentence.

There are other machines that do similarly. These machines automatically set lines, words, sentences, by use of a keyboard. The mats are intricately arranged, selected, set, injected, and redistributed into their magazines waiting for next useage. These machines were known as "Line-o-type", "Intertype", etc. But the Ludlow used hand set mats to accomplish the same thing in a far less complex manner. Which is the draw to them for me.

In these videos, narrated after the videos were taken, I am directing commentary to Dave. I might point out that the power to the building went out after I was there just ten minutes. That is why the room seems a bit dark.

You are welcome to join in the investigation of the Settlement's Ludlow.

Video One: Cycling the drive mechanism

Video Two: Checking the gas lines, table top, general appearance.

That's it for now. Thanks for viewing, and thanks, Dave, for helping me out.

-g.

G. Johanson, Settlement Printer
Florida Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts

Setting Up at Mama's Sauce

2009-11-07T00:04:00.004-05:00

Letterpress hits Orlando/Winter Park with a vengeance! Here is a brief video peek inside Nick's new location. The presses you will see in relative order: the Heidelberg Windmill, 12x18 Kluge (which appeared in a prior Vimeo video and is currently making the rounds in the LP community), the latest acquisition of a second 12x18 Kluge, and the 12x18 C&P recently liberated from the Barn at the Pioneer Settlement.

What you are seeing is the very first fire-up of the Windmill after a few preliminary checks. We had to set the grippers to hold throughout their respective cycles, level the pitch of the suckers, and reposition the feed and delivery stacks. There are a few things we still need to obtain and wire in for "Wagner", as Nick christened it - or rather, him ( I opted for "Bismark", the Iron Chancellor) - but very soon the WM will be 100%.

The first Kluge is the original, from the original Winter Park location. The second Kluge is quite similar except for some of the electrics. The first has a mechanical speed control, the second has an electrical/ resistance speed control using a type of high current rheostat. It also has an auto-throw-out for mis-feeds. It needs to be re-habbed just a bit. It's my latest project.

The last press is being used for hand-fed items, from printing to die cutting. It's a solid "little" C&P, motorised with the option to treadle.

The audio track is from Praetorius' Terpsichore Dances.

Enjoy.

-gary

G. Johanson, Settlement Printer

A Small "Broadside" for the Florida Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts

2009-11-03T20:01:00.014-05:00

So, what's been happening at G. Johanson, Settlement Printer lately?

This year's Fall Country Jamboree, held annually at the Florida Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts falls across the weekend of the November 7 & 8th. Unfortunately, I have to work this particular weekend, so as to provide something to give to visitors, I produced a small "Broadside" - it can be debated if any "side" of this print can be considered "broad", but since presswise I am confined to a total print area of 8 x 12, which being translated means 7 x 11 max areacoverage, we are working under some design size limits.

I decided to employ a fortunate find, of all things, a vintage zinc cut of . . . a piney-wood cabin in what is most definately a deep southern wood! What are the chances of finding something like this? It could have been one of our cabins on the campus! I've lived in Florida long enough to remember the hunting cabins that dotted the Forests and streams of our fair State, many of which were constructed during the Depression by the WPA.

I chose a monotype border, some of which I supplimented with new castings from Quaker City. The title fonts are Old Style Caslon 24pt, a vintage sort over a century old obtained from an estate at Dunedin in 1991, and Litho Shaded 18pt., which has suffered some damage over the years. The slight damage was taken advantage of to lend a sort of "distressed" rural/ primative aire to the piece.

I intend the main portion of the Forme to constitute a "shell", with a broad opening below the cabin cut to insert other events. The "Broadside" described here will contain the insert "33rd Annual Fall Country Jamboree, Nov. 7 & 8", set in Caslon Open Face 24pt.

The press used is my '36 "New Series" Chandler & Price 8x12, the workhorse of my home shop. It is motorised and belted down to around one impression every three seconds. I can go much faster, but what's the hurry?

I found some 67 lb cover stock that looked fairly vintage, 100% rag from what the wrapping said, and I already had some 110 lb Crane Lettra from a prior job. The 67 lb cover will be used for a souveneir hand-out, and the Lettra will be used for the limited-edition print version held in reserve for Settlement Staff, Volunteers, Board members, etc. These will be signed and numbered.

The overall size is 5-1/2 x 8 inches, not exactly your 18 x 24" Broadside, but it will suffice for now.

I took some shots of the two sheets, with some close-ups on the Lettra. The other paper, the 67 lb stock, is much harder, of course, and no deboss was attempted. The Crane Lettra debosses quite naturally, rendering a pleasing effect upon the overall look of the piece.

Here is a close-up of the Litho Shaded font.

This is the souvenir sheet we will be handing out during the Jamboree.

These are the limited edition on handmade Crane Lettra 110 lb. Ecru stock

Here is a close-up of the Cabin zinc cut.

I ran 496 of the souvenir hand-out broadsides, and 25 of the "limited edition" versions, which will be signed and numbered.

The overall appearance reminds me of the front of an old Almanac from the early 19th century, honestly. Which may spark another idea down the road.

Well, that's it for now. Hope you've enjoyed looking at the photos and reading the descripions. Even more, I hope you can make it to the Florida Pioneer Settlement's Jamboree, always the first full weekend of November. Later, in December, we celebrate a "Florida Christmas", another peek at Florida's pioneer roots.

Good Providence in all your endeavours!

-gary

G. Johanson, Settlement Printer

One Morning in St. Augustine.

2009-10-22T06:24:00.016-04:00

Ok, so what's this got to do with printing? Simple. Nothing.

Well, almost. I would like to eventually put up a Letterpress Chappel in the Ancient City, since apparently it's about as far north as I'm gonna get ( I'd like to settle, eventually, way, waaaay up north in Macon Georgia or maybe even Chattanooga, but that's almost leaving the United States.)

You could call this installment "One Day in St. Augustine". Myself and venerable co-hort in crime, Alton Shady decided to wreak pestilence upon Flagler College by surprising my Daughter, a Fine Arts major there, for her Birthday. Although she was coming down that weekend, she had to stay up at the college over her actuall birthday due to her heavy course-load which kept her practically sealed in the design studios for days.

So Alton and I drove up to the Ancient City and gave Anna a casual call from the cell at around, uh, 7am. I asked her what she had planned for the day (unbeknownced to her, we were driving down King Street already!) - she replied "**yawn** I suppose . . . I'll go to the gym . . . or something . . "

"Do you think you could not do that this morning?" I asked

"?" ( Only Anna can do a "?" over the Telephone.)

"Yeah, 'cause were parking right now beside the Lightner."

"*** Squeak!!**** " and various other noises I'll assume to be happy sounds.

". . . I'll be right down in a minute!"

And so she did. And there we were, all gathered in the center of the lobby under the watchful gazes of Adventure, Discovery, Conquest, and Civilisation.

I like Adventure. She looks like Sarah Burnhart.

So, where do we go from here? Lets go to . . .

We'll dine-in.

So, off we went, traipsing down King Street, merrily skipping down side streets, playing tag across Cordova, laughing and frolicking in the early morning mist as we annoyed the general flow of traffic attempting to get to work. Eventually, we made it.

. . . much to the chagrin of the folks already inside eating and conversing in relative peace.

We didn't bring much in the way of money, so we had breakfast on the cheap.

"Mmm - mmm!" said Anna. "This jelly sure is good! I wonder what it would taste like if it were smeared on something?"

"Golly", said Alton. "Do you think the chap behind us would notice if we smeared some on his Bagels ?" His eyes glowed red in excited anticipation, which I neglected to edit out with the Red Eye correction tool.

"Why, why I don't know!" said Anna. "I'll call 4-1-1 and find out!"

And she did.

The Chap behind us didn't seem to be paying too much attention.

A pleasant time was had by all.

After a hearty breakfast, we went out by the sea wall to watch unemployed horse-cab drivers.

It was very educational, and we learnt some new vocabulary words.

As the morning wore on, we decided to take a stroll around the moat of the old Castillo. The air lay dense and heavy around the grand old Castle. . . .

. . . but apparently it wasn't dense enough, so we decided not to.

Anna giggled and said "Hey, Alton. Take a picture of me with your camera!"

"It's not my camera", replied Alton. "It's a baby squirrel."

"Oh", said Anna.

The shadows grew short, and so did our time. Alton had to get back to work before anyone noticed he was gone, and I still had to finish microwaving yesterday's lunch for dinner. So we all headed back to Flagler College to bid our farewells.

"Farewell, Anna!" said Alton.

"Godspeed to you!" Anna replied as she posed by a lifesized cardboard cut-out of her father for a convincing photo.

Anna's friend says "Godspeed", too.

The End.

A Typeset Flyer for the Good Doctor, Part 2

2009-09-29T20:23:00.006-04:00

I had to replace a few pieces of type, one of the disadvantages of using old fonts that may have been in the possession of several shops. Broken swashes, damaged border pieces, one or two "low" faces. After proofing and replacement of damaged or questionable pieces, it was ready to run on the 8x12 New Series C&P, sporting it's "new" 45 year old Rheem blower motor. Very quiet, and with brass oil ports for rear and nose bearings.

It locked up nice and tight the first time with no surprises. Here are some close-up detail. Note that I did not print these on an open fibre stock, but rather Neenah's Classic Laid 75 lb cover, printing on the "smooth" side. Just a tad bit of deboss. I also printed about 250 impressions on Neenah's Classic Linen Pearl finish.

Close-ups as follows:

The Maltese Cross and tapered "dash" border. Each element individually set.

Another view of the same. The text you see on the right was set in 10 pt. Caslon OS 337, courtesy M&H, San Fransisco.

Another view of how the corner comes together. The card measures around 4.5 x 6.5". You see a bit of the Titling, set in 12 pt. Copperplate.

And again. Flash picked up a bit of reflection: the ink was still a bit damp. Used Kelsey's Oil Based dense Black, from a tube that was originally purchased in 1982!! Just like the tube was recently purchased.

There. That should complete the corners. Not that it's any different from the other corners.

Here is the Forme itself, completed and ready to go.

That's about it. Finished and on schedule. Job set, proof, makeready, run-time and clean-up: A full day's work. But it was a good, full day!!

Well, that's it for now. Still sorting through my "sorts". Probably going to add to my Caslon collection, Caslon is the "shop font". Next item on the adgenda: American Optometric Association business cards for Dr. Patino: two colours using the trade-famous "venetian blind" logo which I had to totally construct from ground zero on FreeHand, and transfer to Illustrator on the Mac because the AOA requires the use of Optima and Helvetica Neue faces by terms of use. Whenever you use a Registered Trademark, you have to make sure you understand the "terms of use". Those terms can literally dictate your total design, as, in this case, was true.

Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavours!

-gary

G. Johanson, Printer
Florida Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts
Barberville/ Deltona.

www.gjohanson.blogspot.com

A Typeset Flyer for the Good Doctor

2009-09-27T07:46:00.013-04:00

I have been using an office calendar and fee schedule which is a computer print from an adobe file. It's ok . . . such as it is. It gets the information across, and doesn't look like a low budget photocopy. But I wanted something that was a notch above a computer printout. In fact, several notches above. What the heck, I have a fully equipped Letterpress shop! Let's ratchet that hand-out up to the mini-broadside level. Heh, see if anybody notices.

First I wanted a conservative but decorative border. The "dash-and-cross" 6 pt. ornaments should do fine. These are 6 pt. Maltese crosses separated by 14 pt. tapered ended open face dash ornaments set on their sides (equal to 6 pt.)

The top header is 14 pt Spencerian swash. The Title is 12 pt. Copperplate light, the body text and figures are 10 pt. Caslon OS 337, the very same as used at Colonial Williamsburg. The fee prices, however, is set in 10 pt Century Schoolbook.

This piece was stick set 5 rows at a time. The separation lines are foundry line rule cut to fit the 19 pica inside width (width between the ornamental border) but notched out to 16 pic, to avoid having to piece in leads. I used a tin nibbler for this. A very clean cutter.

The below photo shows the forme just a few lines short of completed, with the finishing piece on the composition stick, to show how the body and border is set together and built up line upon line. Not a simple composition.

To orient you, the forme is upside down. This is the way type is set in the stick, and also the orientation in which the forme ( the forme is the composed type, assembled to create a printed image) is set in the press. This way the printer sees the printed image upright.

Here is where I am at today. Only three more lines to couple to the rest of the forme which is tied up in my "work" galley, which is a heavy bronze tray, quite unlike the magnetic steel trays which are very thin by comparison. I use the bronze tray for purposes such as this, to hold large formes during assembly. The trick here is the Maltese cross corners. The count of lines must work out so that there is a Maltese cross at each corner, yet spacing of leads, quads and lines do not create an unbalanced appearance. Truth be told, I'll be glad if the whole thing locks up and I don't have to spend another hour troubleshooting each line with coppers! I hate having to shim the daylights out of a forme to make it work!

I can only work on this project for a couple hours per day due to having a full time other job - namely at the place for which I am spending all this time and effort, my Optical Dispensary tucked away in a neat little corner of the Sam's Club in Sanford, Florida. It has taken me several nights of burning midnight oil to get this far, a couple hours in my crowded little cubby hole print shop each night. Building up a border simultaneously with rows of leads and body type can be a little tricky, and just plain difficult to slide from the stick, slide in one piece with a million pieces wanting to break loose, and join to the main body without something falling over. If you like 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzles, you'll love pegging type! All told, I have about five hours of setting time in this forme as I write, and about another hour to go. But then, this is hand-wrought production printing in the most traditional of manner!

This is a close-up of the header and title with a corner of border so you can see some of the minute detailing. Note the Maltese cross at the corner. It's really an elegant border, I can't wait to pull a proof! My plans are to have this job completed, cut and printed by Tuesday.

I have been asked how much I would charge for something like this. That's a tough one, probably about the same as the per-hour rate I charge designing on FreeHand or Illustrator. Composing type embodies three dynamics simultaneously: Design, "plating", and Proof reading. Or at least, it can. It is very labour intensive and there is a right and wrong way to go about it.

That's it for this installment. Hopefully - if I don't figure out a way to pie the forme - the next installment will feature the finished product. Till then . . .

. . . good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavours!

-gary.

What, Oh What Can a Kelsey Do?

2009-09-23T14:16:00.020-04:00

It all began on the Letpress List when the subject of roller height control for the C&P Pilot press came up. The person posting was having problems with the well known C&P Pilot Press which this person had not experienced with their Kelsey, "a supposedly inferior press". The subject of Kelseys comes up now and then, and the "cheap" or "inferior" monicker pops up again and again.

My experience with the Kelsey presses has been wholly different. At the risk of sounding cliched, I made somewhat of a living between jobs using Kelsey Presses. I think I know something about them short of being some sort of expert. And the ensuing years have provided me something of a standard for comparison.

No, I am not an expert. I am on the curve. Guess what? So is everyone else, whether they admit it or not. But there are those who have been to the mountain top. Theirs is the world of Heidelberg Windmills, Little Giants, Vandercooks, Kluges, many spending over fifty years or more behind the feeders, delivery boards imposing stones and paper cutters. Some - not all, but a vocal few - tend to be rather opinionated, bordering on snobbery, about what a "quality" press is. Their Standards can be somewhat vague. And their comments can have negative results if not balanced by - let's call it a minority opinion.

I use as my 'personal standard' the output product. Does the press print well? Are the results acceptable? Consistent? Can you produce good products for a long duration? I also use some external dynamics. Is the machine dependable? Can you get parts as needed? Do you have to replace parts frequently?

Notice I did not include speed. That's a no brainer. But then, this only puts me in the camp with Ben Franklin, Kristoff Sauer, Albrecht Duerer, Bewick, and Gutenberg himself! Not a bad lot, I'd say.

I find the average Kelsey Front Lever Press stands up well in each category.

So, what do Kelsey Presses NOT do well?

Kelsey's literature was obviously trying to sell presses, so you won't get anything but glowing reports from them. However, they also published photos of samples of work each press was able to do for short run. These are "short run" presses. They were not meant to do 10,000 impressions at a time, day in, day out. But you know? Neither were Pilots and the early Pearl OS Models 1 and 3! their castings show it. None of these "Parlour Presses" were designed for heavy runs. By the way, neither were Vandercooks, yet they are "pressed" into high production service every day!!

Kelsey printed some parts of their catalogues and manuals on a 5x8! Many folks missed that. I have catalogue inserts printed specifically to compare with the rest of the catalogue that was printed, reportedly, on a Heidelberg Windmill! It was an effective way to prove a point!

Kelsey presses could be found in Churches, Executive mail rooms, even larger printing firms. One large production firm used them to save about 500 bucks per run with short orders and printing their own billheads. Kelsey was pretty smart to print letters of professional testimonial. Many were written by industry veterans then engaged in their trade. The simplicity of operation may have been somewhat overstated - I chock that up to enthusiasm on the part of many who wrote Kelsey. And I disagree with Kelsey's claim that anyone can learn the basics of the trade sufficiently to produce an acceptable product within 24 hours. ( they were quick to point out that they did not mean you could learn everything in 24 hours - or 24 days!) - but that's marketing for you.

Cutting through the propaganda, one is left with the Kelsey Excelsior Press. The essence of bare essentials. The "Deux Chaveux" of Presses. Each press comes in three separate parts that separate one from the other for various reasons: the Ink Disk, naturally. The type bed- something not common and very, very handy. The Mainframe. Of course you can further break down the Excelsior by removing the platen from the back, and complete dis-assembly, but the above three sections were specifically designed for frequent removal.

Kelsey used roll stock, which actually amounts to very thick wire for some of their parts, as opposed to bar stock for some of the hardware. This draws fire from critics. But it must be observed that many popular classics that do NOT draw fire utilise the same cost cutting measures. For instance, roller hooks. Very primitive by C&P standards. Golding used the same exact system for their OS Pearls. Roll stock for the gripper bars - again a replication from the Pearl. The gripper bars themselves are simple steel straps, rolled at the base and threaded to receive a screw. The Pearl uses a slide cam guide and retention spring to guide gripper bar motion, the Kelsey used a sliding feed wire that protrudes beneath the handle casting. One is no better - or higher quality than the other. Kelsy rollers and their trucks were not keyed. Some think this to be a mark of inferiority. I know more than one Pilot user that wishes their rollers were NOT keyed too! The extra rotation provided by momentum - just a few millimetres - helps to fully charge the rollers with a smallish ink disk. Personally, I find precious little difference in the final product both in behaviour of the press OR the printed product. ( note: the Kelsey press need slower, more deliberate roller speeds to avoid skidding over the forme, one disadvantage of not having keyed trucks and cores - but then Kelsey operators are not in a race!)

The front lever Excelsior or side lever Victor both require the development of a "touch", a sense of feel of the pressure developed between platen and forme. This is easily developed. The platen is probably the easiest of all such presses to adjust and level. And the principles learned on the Kelsey is portable to all platen presses, really. The skills and touches I learned on my Kelseys help me tremendously on my motorised slick and fancy NS C&P and my classic Pearl. The things I learned such as registration techniques, dealing with high and low spots, backing a forme, etc., helped me on multicolour runs with the 12x18 Kluge. I was not fumbling in the dark adjusting for registry, for instance, or putting together tricky makeready for combination type and cut formes. These were learned in detail on my 5x8, 3x5 and 9x13 Excelsiors.

Another thing that draws fire from critics is the casting quality. This is purely subjective and based entirely upon a person's experience and perceptions. I find the castings extremely robust. I have sheared one casting on my 9x13 - by closing the platen on an iron rod that had fallen between the bed and platen and stupid me just wasn't looking! Was the bed or platen damaged? No. Was were any stress bearing castings compromised? No. The cast eyelet for the gripper bar rod feed-thru broke. It was glued back on with JB Weld 18 years ago, and is still holding!

We also busted a casting on the Kluge at Mama's Sauce. Bad enough to render the ink fountain inoperable, so now we hand ink the disk. The mere speed of the ink roller somehow exerted pressure on the right hand advance gear and it literally flew against the wall! So, how should I now rate Kluge castings? Catch my drift? Kluge is also a derned nice press.

Ok, enough pontificating and on with the show and tell.

What I wish to illustrate here is NOT my artistic abilities, but rather the ability of Kelsey Excelsior presses to create fine, articulate work with consistency and dependability. I want Kelsey owners to understand that they posses a fine instrument capable of excellent work, and worth every dime of investment you put into them. They stood between me and the food stamp line for a year. I have nothing to gain personally by promoting them - and really, I don't consider myself promoting them as much as defending them. Jeesh, it's getting mushy in here.

Here we go. Story Time!

A long time a go there lived an out of work Optician who really was glad not to be Opticianing anymore. He longed for his early days when he used his hands for a living. "I know", he said, "I'll look in the paper and see if I can use my hands to turn the pages!" and he did.

His eyes fell upon an ad. Printing presses for sale. Two Kelseys and a cabinet of type. One photo cutter. Cheap. So, this out-of-work Optician purchased the whole outfit for 250 dollars and began doing something he hadn't done since 1974: set type, cut linoleum, and print.

Our hero began to ask folks if they'd like business cards. He showed them his own. "Wow", they said. "How did you get the letters to stand out like that?"

The out of work Optician thought "Hmm . . . they don't stand out - they sorta press inward."

"Oh, gosh. These are hand printed on some old Iron Handpresses!" said the Optician. And folks suddenly began to pay him 80 dollars for cards they could have spent 10 dollars on at the local Kinkos. Kinkos from that time onward took out a contract on the Out of Work Optician.

Soon, the nice guys from the American Amateur Press Association caught wind of what the Out of Work Optician was doing and began to help him out by getting him a nice Rouse Composition Stick and a pica stick. And a larger photo cutter. Eventually Mr. Bill of Dunedin gave the Optician a big 9x13 Kelsey Excelsior, cast in 1903, because it hurt his back to pump it.. But the Out of Work Optician had no spine, so it didn't have the same effect on him. It was a match made in heaven.

The AAPA folks introduced the Out of Work Optician to Southern Engravers, who started to take pictures of the Out of Work Optician's pen and ink work and make zinc and magnesium dies from them. They proofed these dies on their big fancy Vandercook, because all zinc and magnesium die makers know that's what they were made for.

Soon the Out of Work Optician and his sweet Wife joined American Craft Endeavours and came up with the name "Heirloom Press". And the Optician began to make Holiday cards, custom shopping bags for the Antique Dealers of Main Street, Dunedin, and business cards for the Antique Emporiums of Palm Harbor Fl. and the Flea Marketeers at Boot Ranch. Heirloom Press became the only commercial letterpress operation on Alternate 19, Pinellas County Florida.

Soon, the Out of Work Optician began to show at different shows locally, and sold everything he printed, with orders for more. People didn't know about Lettra Paper and deep dish debossing then, they just liked his work and the pretty colours. Black. Red. And sometimes, Blue. And more black. The Out of work Optican was pleased, and finally happy at his work, something that he had not enjoyed in 18 years as an Optician, which was one reason why he was Out of Work.

I would like to say that Heirloom Press lived happily ever after. But it didn't. All good things must come to an end. Bad things too. Living expenses were mounting faster than the Press was generating income because of the show frequency and elevating prices. The Out of Work Optician began to realise that he needed to float a loan to see Heirloom Press through long enough to build up a cash reserve to negotiate a 30 day billing cycle. But the bank wanted to see a full time job, so the Out of Work Optician sadly became a Working Optician, donned his chain mail and armour, and charged off into the violent world of Retail Optics, possibly never to return again.

One day during a lull in the Battle, the Optican happened upon a little Settlement. He noticed that they had a broken press and no printer. He inquired if they would like to have Heirloom Press, still in Palm Harbour? "Yes", they said, "And can we have YOU too?"

The kindly Optician took off his helmet and smiled. "Yes," he said. "You had me at Heidelberg."

They looked at each other with blank faces.

And to this day, the Optician still works the Press at the Settlement. And now, we hear, he is starting up his own press again. Has he left the violent world of Retail Optics? Is he Out of Work and Happy once again?

The End.

Here is my old Logo. Happy times. Nice presses. Good people. Great rotisserie chicken.

This was one of my Christmas Cards from "Christmas Under the Oaks", a show that was regularly held on the campus of St. Petersburg Community College. These samples were actually part of the "rejects" that I held on to for other uses. I sold all my exemplary copies. The centre design was hand tinted with Berol Prismacolour. I'll see if I have one left somewhere. I came across a few of these recently.

Here are some detail shots. The original artwork was fine stipple rendered from an 001 Rapidograph. The Kelsey 5x8 and 9x13 did an incredible job with inking the forme and delivering the ink to the rather hard card stock. No plugs anywhere. These dots are extremely fine. I would be hard pressed to do an equal job with any other letterpress.

More detail. The outside shell is green, the design inspired from the US Regular Postal issues of 1920 - 30. The "Cabin in the Woods" design inspired from a 1920's era Christmas Seal.

More closeup detail. I ran several hundred of these cards and sold them for a dollar apiece, not too shabby for home-made cards in 1992. Letterpress had not begun to "revive" and I had to do a lot of explaining what Heirloom Press was all about! But the difference between my work and the commercial counterparts were quickly observed in almost every case. No talk of deep deboss then, it was the design and fully saturated colours that attracted folks to my Letterpress!

Here is another design in the same shell. Note the centred registry! Registry, once set, was rock solid on all my Kelseys! In case you cannot make it out, that's a baby in a feeding trough, with a lamb wondering when the heck he can have breakfast. The star is shining through the window sort of, but the baby is sleeping through it. Gamma rays and all. Shepherds raising a ruckus. Notice the walls are cut-square stone? That's because I'm German. Which is also why I drink lots of coffee. And still listen to Ramstein. Versteh'n Sie?

Here's the inside verse of the card you just saw above. Yes, I wrote it. The poem is called "The Greatest Gift". It's the truest thing I ever wrote.

Close up of the Monotype cap. This came from Bill Reiss at Quaker City. I just want to show the detail: again, perfect articulation. Every dot, every line, perfect. Excellent coverage. Paper was, I believe, Hammermill grey stock with darker fibres scattered throughout. I have long forgotten the name of the stock.

This is the verse inside the first card with the Cabin. Border font again from Quaker City. Verse is a traditional toast raised at Chownings Tavern, Williamsburg, back in the 1760's, when I was apprenticing.

This is a three colour prop card that was intended to be a QSL. Inspired after a French postage stamp from around 1900. This was a proof used to set the registry of the red and blue dies. So when you see the close-ups, know that's the reason why registry was off. I sold each and every copy. All I have are the registry proofs and the orginal acetate layered artwork. The black was the key, blue is the border, red are the roses . . . of course.

Detail of the face. It's my wife. And she drew the lips and chin. Again, the original artwork is stipple, my illustration media of choice, all using 01 and 001 Rapidograph.

Detail. The red is off, but once it fell into registry, it stayed there!

Detail. Note the blue border encroaching on the black. I could have trapped it by running the blue first, but I wanted registry. This same image was part of the registry setup for the blue as well as the red.

Detail. Note good registry of the blue and black. We were almost there on that run when this card was printed. The red is getting close, too! The pins were tilted a bit.

This was a little 2 x 1.5" Plexicut run on the 3x5. Plexiglass is actually engraved by large gravers made from key stock. The product looks very similar to a woodcut. Like wood engraving, you work white on black. But the cuts are deeper and wider.

A close-up. A square rigged Barkentine. Plexiglass mounted on end grain Maple, cut about one-eighth under type high. Kelseys are perfect for this sort of printing.

This is another Plexicut run on my 5x8 Excelsior.

A close-up of the detail around the footbridge. I recut this in Linoleum because the adhesive used to mount the plexiglass to the larger backing made raised spots that were a pain. The Linocut and detail is shown below.

This cut actually carved a niche for me in the Bay Area Art community. It was probably the only thing that I ever did that really made money, not that money was the object. It was a large Christmas Card. I grew up in Bavaria, and was influenced by the woodcuts of the 16th century. You may see some influence here. Two versions exist: one with hand tinted sky like this one, and one tinted by a blue registry linoblock. I prefer the hand tints, personally.

Bridge detail.

The perspective is distorted by the camera. I had to angle the print to avoid a lot of reflection. The paper is hard with a polished surface, but not glossy. I also printed these on handmade paper designed for woodcuts and linocuts. Those are all sold. My mom has one framed in her study. Yeah. Mommy.

I actually lived near a town similar to this picture. I think Garmisch Partenkirche was in my mind when I laid this block out. Vieleicht ein kleines dorf am Tegernsee, suedlich von Muenchen oder im Werdenfels.

Well, that's it. Show and tell and a little bed-time story. Hope you enjoyed it, but more than that: that if you are the proud possessor of a Kelsey Press, you can know you have a quality device that can stand toe to toe with the best of them if you learn how to use them correctly, and within their design limits - which I find not too limiting!!

Good Providence in all your endeavours!

gary.

"Cracker " Half-font Cases

2009-08-05T23:25:00.009-04:00

These are home made cases. They are probably about sixty years old, possibly seventy. These cases were donated to the Pioneer Settlement some years ago, complete with home-made cabinet. There are approximately 75 cases filling two tall cabinets, plus a smaller table top cabinets which contain sets of quads and spaces for 6 thru 48 pt. sizes.You might be able to see those cabinets in some of the photos on this blog taken in the Pioneer Settlement Print Shop.

Now, these cases are not particularly pretty. They are purely utilitarian. They are made of tempered Masonite. So, what's so special about these cases that I am using them for a Blog story? They are unique. And very typical for a small shop in Florida's past where resources were limited and you got by on what you had on hand.

When we got these cases, there were also some standard California Job cases and two cabinets to contain them. These, added to my own donation of my 1870 Hamilton cabinets and cases add up to our literally swimming in cases. So why keep these small Masonite cases?

For one thing, they are in very nearly mint shape. The other, wooden cases came from the same shop, which I believe to be the old Orlando Sentinel Star's Daytona office's print shop. The wooden cases are in . . . decent shape, but some are pretty rough.By and large, a number of the wooden cases really need to be scrapped. Florida is not a kind place for storage in an un-air conditioned environment. And yet these cases of Masonite have weathered years of dampness, heat, and this without even the slightest signs of damage.

Gracious knows they were used. You can tell from the slides in the cabinet. You can tell from the type itself. In fact, the "Club Card"'s open faced font came from these cases.

I posted queries about these cases, and I got back an interesting response: Masonite contains an oil. This oil is expressed in the processing and pressing of the wall board. It can resist water and dampness to a fair degree, especially on the polished faces of the board. This was why these cases did not rot, while the other wood cases were a bit more prone.

The lay of the case (the order of the slots) are not hap-hazard, either. There is a logic to them, which became evident as I composed from them. In fact, these cases were very easy to compose and distribute from and to. For a small shop, they prove ideal with their fourteen inch square width and length.

There is really no joinery involved. The pieces were glued into place with standard wood glue, or hide glue. They are very strong.

I did a search of the case lay-out to see if a standard case lay was followed, but nothing seemed to match. Each case is very uniform, upper, lower, figures.

These are the upper and lower case cases. They are entirely square, entirely Masonite. The actual case space is thirteen by fourteen inches, leaving an inch in front to serve as a case pull. Because they follow a uniform, if unidentified order of lay, I've taken to calling them "Cracker" cases. Florida Cracker Cases. Granted the uniformity of the case lay may not extend beyond the confines of my shop, nonetheless there is a logic. And a quaintness.

So, why not build my own "Cracker Cases" from tempered Masonite?

After I took measures of all slots, I took the Masonite that I purchased and cut out three fourteen inch squares. Then I cut several strips one inch thick. These, in turn, were cut on the mitre saw to specific lengths of 2.5 and 1.5 inches. After cutting the pieces, I began to glue the corners of the outside "frame", thirteen by fourteen inches. This was then glued to the 14 x 14" board, finished side up.

Starting from the front of the case, I inserted first thehorizontal lengths, then glued in the vertical slots. I cut square wooden "jigs" the size needed for each slot type, size and width. These served as guides for proper width and straightness. First one row, then the next, then the next, on up to the last row. You can see in the images the corner clamps and pipe clamps. The wood glue actually dried pretty fast. When completed, the case dried overnight.

Here she is with clamps removed. You can compare to the actual cases. This one will be the upper case and figure case. Next, seen underneath, is the lower case.

That's it, the latest project. All I need to do is make about 75 of these (hee) over the next year or so. I plan

to do a lot of typesetting for my Letterpress work. In fact, I already have a request for two orders of the "Club Cards" from my last posting. If anyone is interested in these cards, drop me a line for details at:

wd4nka@aim.com

wd4nka@gmail.com

I'm ordering up a fresh batch of Crane Lettera!

-gary

"Club Cards"

2009-07-31T02:02:00.008-04:00

Ever hear of "Club Cards"? These are minimal info cards,
printed very nicely, just to give folks a Phone number
and a name. Very simple and straightforward in design,
these cards have the client's monogramme blind embossed
into the upper left corner of the design. In Mark's case,
I used open faced Caslon for the name, cut a length of 2pt
rule. Below the rule, 10p. Caslon OS 337.

These cards were printed on 110 thru 220lb Lettera, by Crane,
which is handmade cotton rag stock. In this particular case,
three colours available are used, white, ivory and ecru. This
sort of loose fibre stock enbosses well, yet does not "punch"
when pressure is properly set.

These 'minimal info' cards can come in very handy and are
quite versatile. They can be personal cards or used for
business. (Bond . . . James Bond.) These particular cards
are handset, as opposed to digital design, using moveable
type. The price for these hand made cards averages around
$150.00 for 200 cards including the blind monogramme (which
means I have to run the cards through the press twice) or
$99.00 without the monogramme. Aww, But the Diamond Pattern
mono is so classy! It uses a two or three letter initial,
and arranges them in a diamond design, the first initial on
the left, the last name being set in the centre as the largest
character, and the middle initial positioned to the right.
My name, Gary Glen Johanson would be arranged:

G J G

Of course, either way, the cards are printed on Lettera,
which can receive a nice, tactile deboss without clobbering
the paper And, of course, the monogramme can be inked
and printed as normal, instead of the slightly deeperblind
"emboss", which is actually a deboss. The price would be
the same as that for the blind deboss, if the monogramme
is printed as a second colour.

The font I use for the Monogrammes goes back to the 1920s.
It was quite popular as part of a Stationery Header, which,
of course, I can also do.

That's it for this installment!

-gary

G. Johanson, Printer!

Tiffany's Wedding Part 3: the Conclusion

2009-07-21T20:02:00.007-04:00

Phase 5(b): Laying down the second colour

Well, how 'bout that. We put on the second and final overlay cover. In this installment we pretty well put all the pieces together and see just what these colours do in live action! The Dusky Teal and Magenta were not colours that Tiffany pulled out of the air, they actually BELONG somewhere, as the top photo sorta gives away.

Today is day two for this job. As you remember from the last episode, our hero had to let the monogramme run dry overnight because of heavy ink coverage and hard finish on the paper. Not a real great combo for fast drying, but a nice combo for sharp imagery.

I began the day with my sweet and colour-wise wife suggesting that before I head out to the studio/ shop, slap ink on the disk and crank the second colour, I might give Tiffany a call and let her look at the first colour. Who knows, she may want it lighter? And while I'm at it, double the white in the mix and have the twice-light teal ink ready IF she prefers the lighter version. It made sense, so I did just that, and ran a proof. It was half as dark, looked nice, but not really nice-er. I ran a proof of the magenta text over the lighter teal, and it was a bit more contrasty. So it could go one way or the other.

Tiffany came by and loved the first run. We need not run another 150 of the lighter. So, that accomplished, we proceeded to lock up the second die, which has the Edwardian Script body text in the place where the monogramme block went in the lock-up. This gave me pretty close registration to the first colour and saved me a sheet of tympan paper. I had to move the gauge pins just a touch. I use a micrommetre to level and centre justify my copy on the tympan, which took about 8 or 9 impressions to do. I ran a manual cycle, took an impression, and we were all set to go.

I took a few shots in case it was hard to imagine magenta on a press that had teal on it yesterday. Sheesh, talk about changing gears . . .

This run went a lot quicker because I didn't have to "double-clutch" the press, that is, I could pull an impression from each cycle, as opposed to yesterday's impression every two cycles. Today I was running text, and not an image with wide areas of ink coverage.

The Pearl Linen finish took the text very nicely, and no depression is seen on the reverse of the cards. But it's not exactly what is called a "kiss" impression, either. There is a little depression of the front fibres of the surface finish, but no separation of fibres. Thus you do see a very slight deboss on the front, which is quite classic. That's what I like to see. Just the old traditionalist coming out, I suppose.

I love press shots! I'm not a huge fan of my camera's flash, though. It makes my presses look so rusty! They are not, in fact, quite the opposite. But I don't have time to photoshop these pictures, so here goes. No, the smeary red on the die is not from the rollers. The roller height is set just right. It was from the proofing, after which I cleaned the die and got some magenta residue on the wood from the type brush.

The run totaled 180 impressions, two colour. This was over the amount requested, but heck, what's a little overkill? I told Tiffany that after the wedding she can send Derek out on the street corner and sell the overage to passers-by.

Phase 6: Wrap Up.
And now, once again, I have a living room and dining room full of cards drying. One of these days I'll spring for a wire tray pie rack. Yeah, when I get that store-front with the bay window.

Here's another shot of the completed announcement in the four-fold envelope. Here you can see why I ran the colours I did. The envelope and backing card keys with the monogramme and text. The flaps on the sides interleave as they close, not unlike the petals of a flower.

Here is the envelope, closed.

Well, that's it! From beginning to end. The whole process took several weeks with consultation, materials procurement, re-consultation, testing, sign off and process. Add this to the fact that I am a practicing Optician managing a clinic. And I get up every morning at 4am to do a 6.6 kilo course 6 days a week. Busy guy? Yeah. But my hope is that as Letterpress catches on around here in Central Florida, I can actually open my operation up to full time activity. It practically is that already!

Good Providence in all your Letterpress Endeavours!

-gary

G. Johanson, Printer!
Fellow, Florida Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts

Tiffany's Wedding Part 2

2009-07-21T06:21:00.018-04:00

Phase 4: Impression testing of custom colours.

The next phase is the colour mixing, for which I wanted Tiffany to be present, at least for most of the process. Tiffany took most of the following photos, in fact.

It became pretty clear that the electric Teal and Fuschia, as it appears on the computer screen, wasn't going to happen. In fact Tiffany noted that even pulling a print from her file on her own printer gave hugely different colours. We agreed that the contrast between the red letters and almost blue-green of the monogramme required a much more muted monogramme and a darker magenta in the text. Now, one of the things we have to remember is that while most cards are around 5 x 7 in., we are reduced to putting the same amount of information . . . actually even more than most . . . in an area less than five inches square, which called for reduced sized letters. This, in turn, makes the thick strokes of each character thinner, and the thin strokes thinner still. We need to maintain sufficient contrast so the card will be something like legible without the need to take a couple Excedrin because of the optical contrast.

We mixed colour by as natural of light as possible. Mixing colours can be pretty tricky, certainly not a very linear affair. Each colour is chemically different in some way, not unlike Artist's oil paint. I mix with a palette knife. I started with Van Sonn oil based opaque white. Next came process blue. All you need is a couple molecules of process blue , and boom! You have a pale baby blue that looks pretty good. Then I added process yellow, about a molecule. Really! I'm exaggerating the proportions, the point is, it doesn't take much to darken down a colour, but to lighten it requires gobs of white. So go slow. A touch of yell0w, and we had a decent confederate blue on the verge of green. Tiffany wanted more blue, so I added 80% white and 20% blue together and added it to the mix. The result was a fairly light dusky teal.

Say what you want about the small Showcard Presses, I love my little proofer! It's no Vandercook, but it pulls a nice print. Good enough for Tiffany to give her OK to the monogramme colour. So, one more impression test to go.

Now we're shooting for a compromise Fuschia / Magenta. These cards are being adhered to a four-fold bi-coloured envelope which is, in fact, Fuschia and bright Teal. We need to stay at least acceptably teriary to these colours. Again, it's a compromise between Optics (I am an Optician, after all. This process smacks a bit of Ishihara Colour Blindess test patterns!), legibility, colour keying, and what is possible with real live printing on this particular stock. Changes are made as you go. This is quite a labour intensive process. In our case with this job, Tiffany and I spent two hours, and even then, at the point she had to leave for an appointment, I still needed to do some slight alterations. Thus, the custom colour selection process can take as long as the printing process itself! Keep this in mind if you are considering custom colour work. Pantone swatches and ink scales notwithstanding, it still boils down to eyeball, testing and proofing.

Here, I am using my small brayer to lay on a magenta mix. We ultimately wound up going darker than the colour I'm using here. By principle, I always proof on the same stock as the run itself. Since this is Neenah's Classic Crest Linen in Pearl finished cover stock, there is a slight gloss to the surface, which means these cards, run with oil base, will smear very easily and require at least 12 - 24 hours drying time. Twelve hours is sufficient to permit the second colour. But in proofing, we are sort of doing a wet on wet thing that gets sorta smeary with handling, so we are looking basically at the combination of the two colours.

This is the first magenta mix. It was a bit light.

Eventually we went darker, and finally put the colour to bed. After the colours are mixed, I scraped the ink directly into small cans. Usually what I mix on the metal palette is more than enough for a platen press run of several hundred to a thousand. So, now we go to phase four: the actual printing!

Phase 5(a): Laying down the first colour.

The monogramme is the first colour printed. The text will be opaque and lay atop the monogramme. Now the Monogramme itself is no simple matter. Makeready on larger wood mounted cuts can be a bit tricky because the cuts are almost never exactly even. In my case, invariably I do a slight build-out from the bed to make up for lighter impression on one side or other of the cut. A strip of masking tape across the back on the low impression side usually does the trick, as in the case with this cut. For dies, I prefer to do most of the leveling this way. Spot issues of impression I handle on the side of the platen/ tympan.

Now, this cut needs a bit of analysis. Like the body text, this monogramme is fashioned from Edwardian Caps, which means it has thick and thin strokes. The thick strokes carry a lot of ink, which must be spread evenly over the wider surface. Platen presses can be tricky here. The ones that do the best job have four to six rollers, two Forme rollers and two or more rollers dedicated to handling and spreading ink. However, I have read that a way to compensate for this if you are using less than four rollers is an old printer's technique of double cycling the press, which is simply letting the rollers ink the Forme (or Die) twice for each impression. In fact, one web site says that the added ink rollers were actually there to imitate the technique of double cycling in a single cycle to speed things up a bit. So I'll pass this little tid-bit on to you.

Another thing: we are not using a loose fibre paper such as Lettera. We have a polished stock which means you cannot just "ram" the die into the paper. You must find that pressure which ensures good ink coverage without squeezing it off the relief surface and making the ink gather at the edges. I call that "Sabateuring" the ink, from the photographic "Sabateur",or "Posturising" effect where you flash the print paper in developer, forcing the silver salts to rush to the edges of the latent image as it's developing, producing exaggerated edge-line contrast and evacuated centres of mass. It was great for advertising images in the 1960s, but is sucks on Letterpress. And I see a fair degree of this effect even on loose fibred stock as people just punch away at that Lettera. Need I bring this up again? There is a time and place to deboss, and a time to apply judicious amounts of pressure to execute a finely articulate line. Tacticity does not equate to a punch.

Here's the set up. I wound up having to use a fairly hard makeready, and there is a slight depression noticeable from the rear of the printed piece, nothing like a punch, but enough pressure to imprint through the linen finish. The impression is on the verge of "light" but to increase pressure would be unwise. I can tell by the sound of the press when pressure starts to mount, and I like my iron and steel castings too much. A critical evaluation of the image through a loupe shows a fair edge, very slight deboss, no Sabateuring of wide area coverage portions, I call it a good impression. I then ran 120 more. These had to set out and dry, which took up a lot of room. I placed a 3 x 4 foot square drawing board on the upper deliver table to set out 20 cards at a time, then removed them into the house to park on the dining room table, coffee table, piano, piano bench, and wherever else they could spend the night.

That was my day yesterday. On Tuesday, the "red" run happens. If the contrast between the Monogramme and Text still proves lacking, I will lighten up the already lightened dusky Teal and run the job over again. If that's what it takes, we do what we must.

The bottom line is that Tiffany will have a great card, one that she will always remember, one that she will have in a scrap book for the rest of her life. The very least I can do from my studio is my very best. And guys, one thing I learned from restoring antique wireless transmitters and receivers, and a few presses: it's a labour of love. You do charge for your sevices but you will never extract a price for all the labour you will be performing. It just cannot be done. You charge a fair price for your services based upon what the market will bear in your area, and based on what you need to make to keep the doors open and a roof over your head. But the bottom line remains: you gotta love it. You must enjoy it. Excellence always resides at the intersection of Talent and Passion. You must have a Passion for this stuff. And I will assume you have some talent in this art, otherwise why even consider it? Hmm?? :>)

Last installment to come after the last run. I know that to many of you, this is old hat, but I hope that for some it will prove to be a revealing and educational glimpse into a field that you may be considering as you grow your interest in Letterpress Typography.

-gary.

Tiffany's Wedding

2009-07-20T06:05:00.012-04:00

So, how does a design jump from the drawing board and onto printed media? I thought we might walk through this process, especially for those of you who may wonder why the heck letterpress printing is so costly. Another reason is that this is an educational blog. My first priority is always to encourage folks just getting their feet wet in this industry and art. Particularly those here in Central Florida.

"Gary!" you may ask, "Why are you encouraging competition?? You are one of literally a handful of Letterpress operators and craftsmen/women in the whole State! Why do you want to encourage competition when you have this huge field all to yourself?"

Answer: Competition makes me better. It makes YOU better, too. It makes you work. But more than that, a community of craftsmen and craftswomen inspires. It promotes creativity. It creates awareness of your art. It also creates a better environment for your equipment because suddenly, parts, supplies, presses become more available. We learn from each other! So, in MY book, the more the merrier, and we all benefit. Letterpress was once dead. It's now alive because people like you and me are paying attention to it and are taking advantages of the tools we have at hand. This is how we grow, no?

To tell the naked truth, Letterpress in the main took a backseat back in the 1970s when offset printing and photo type editing, and later computer editing finally eclypsed the old Platen Jobber and Cylinder presses. Running these types of presses, traditional as they were, was just plain too labour intensive. When you had Union Tradesmen working at the God-awful 1972 rate of 5 - 8 dollars an hour, and Masters clocking 10 - 12 dollars per hour, and this new organisation OSHA breathing down your neck, you cut costs ASAP. Platen presses became the domain of die cutting, museum pieces and what few High Schools would risk them for Print Shop Classes. Even then, the cylinder type proof presses such as the Vandercooks, pretty well replaced the Platen Jobber Press in the Halls of Higher Learning. In short, until just a short time ago, Letterpress was essentially dead. In particular the Platen Jobber. (yes, I know, there are a whopping 20 or 30 printeries around the country that boast that they never stopped using them. Wow. 30 out of 30,000. We'll call them the eccentric few.)

Along came Digital Graphics Imaging, Vector algorithms and transparency printing, replacing the old high contrast Lithofilm. Along came Polymer Plates. The attention of traditional graphics plating firms took note, and, thankfully, interest in the new digital technologies. The computer replaces the old 14 x 22" R&R Robinson Camera and Darkroom for copy imaging, and suddenly a whole new world of possibilities are brought to bear on the Dear Olde Platen Presses, and indeed Old School Typography in General. And by the New Millenia, Gutenberg had shaken hands with the Digital Age. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Ok, so what about hot metal type? Oh, to be sure, handset type is still a practiced art and craft! If anything, the Digital Plating phenomena has created more interest in the classical protocals and printing arts. There is a growing demand for handset products, in fact many consider "true Letterpress" to be Handset Only, which adds to what the Germans used to call the "Handwerk" of it all. ( Some of you living in Munich may recall the annual "Handwerks Fest".) There are still traditional type foundries in the U. S., such as M&H in San Fransisco, or Quaker City up in Honeybrook PA. But I digress . . .

Letterpress owes the rennaissance it is currently enjoying to the digital technologies. And dyed in the wool traditionalists like me just simply have to get their heads around this immutable fact. I am mentioning this because as of late, I have encountered a bit of pooh-poohing from the Museum Printing crowd of the new era typographers who have moved into the neighbourhood, implying they are something less than Letterpress Printers. I colour that notion absurd. Oh, yes, it's different. Oh, yes, one must learn new skills. I think that's the rub. New skills.

So, let's take a look at these new skills by taking a tour of the production of Tiffany's Wedding Announcement. We will look at the original concept, the "lofting" and editing of the digitised image and the final plate product in this installment.

First: the initial design

Tiffany and Derek, friends of ours from Church, were thrilled over the prospect of having handcrafted wedding announcements. Tiffany had no idea that lurking in my workroom were two Platen Jobber presses, or that I was a sort of ersatz Christof Sauer (german revolutionary war era printer in Philadelphia. That's another story.)

Tiffany is quite talented in her own right, and soon I had a design which she came up with on her own drawing board, or, ahem, "Integrated Developmental Environment", IDE, the fifty cent word for a computer image made on whatever imaging programme you name, from Microsoft Paint to Word to Illustrator to Quark. In Tiffany's case, it was MS Word.

Tiffany used Edwardian Script to make her text body, and then used the Edwardian caps "D" and "T" with an Edwardian ampersand in the middle to be used as a background Monogramme. My job was to render these images into files which could be edited and sent to the plater. My IDE of choice is Macromedia's FreeHand MX. Two colours would be involved, the monogramme in a blue-green sort of teal, and the text in a fuchsia sort of magenta. The paper is an awesome Neenah Linen finished Pearl, which has an Opaline reflective effect, but not overly severe. The finished printed piece would measure 4.75" by 4.75", and would be adhered to the inslide of a four-folded cover which will enclose the announcement like petals of a flower. A very creative idea, Tiffany!

Second: the digital work.

Importing an MS Document is not easy because Word is usually not very friendly to vector IDEs, so the best way to go for me was to redraw the whole thing. I resized the image on a 4.75" square canvas, and superimposed the two designs in as close to the finished colour as possible. The image below is a screenshot of the FreeHand IDE and the superimposed image.

It took a little tweaking here and there to make it fit and not so reduce the text so as to make it hard to read. Also the contrast of colours must lend towards legibility. Fortunately tertiary shades of green/ blue and red/yellow are complimentary and contrast each other. Upon finding a comfortable point, each element of this design must be separated and converted into black and white images for the Plater. In this case, the Plater is Owosso Graphics.

This is the first plate which will be printed. Tiffany did the final arrangement of the elements of this monogramme herself on my computer until she had the three elements arranged according to her liking and approval. At this point I saved the image. It was ready to send.

This is the second plate, converted to Black and White. But we ran into a snag: Tiffany's Wedding Website changed ownership, and the address had to be changed. And later still, when the new ownership proved a bit limiting to Tiffany (she really likes to design her own stuff, not having her choices limited!) we had to edit the text for a new web address. This was done by my saving and sending .pdf images to Tiffany for approval. But the deadline, July 26th, is coming on fast! So the approved second plate, along with the first plate was sent off to Owosso, taking advantage of their overnight return option. I might add that the metal we ordered is 16g. magnesium mounted on wood, type high. This was a cost cutting move on our part. We initially wanted copper to polish and give to the Bride and Groom as a souvenir, but in this economy such luxuries often need to wait. We can have copper cast later. As a designer AND printer, I can save my clients a bit of money here and there by offering alternative choices, which is the cool part of what I do.

Even though by this time I have several hours of design time into this project and Tiffany has an even greater investment in "sweat equity" owing to the twists and turns of plans, it's been great to work hand and glove with Tiffany through this project, and for her, having a personal part of the design is invaluable.

Third: the Plating.

The plates arrived from Owosso the next day. Platers send proofs along with their plates so you can proofread without having to ink up and roll your plates through the proofing press. In this case I have cut down the proofs so I can physically check their sizes against the actual stock which will be used. You can see that piece of stock at the top of the photo.

The next shots are close-ups of the plates and proofs.

And now we are ready to take a colour impression test for the colour mix. Hopefully Tiffany can make it down to the shop for this phase of the operation. While she has given me an awful lot of room to make choices for her, I want the client to be as much in charge as is practicable. The process is not inexpensive, and involves a lot of handwork, design work, time and involvement to make happen. Digital technology notwithstanding, there is an awful lot of handwork that goes into Letterpress printing even BEFORE you make the First impression!

That's it for now. Stay tuned for the next installments where we visit the colour testing and proofing, makeready and lock-up, and the actual run of the two colours.

I remain your most humble and obedient servant

G. Johanson, Printer.

Moving the 12 x 18 New Series C&P from the Settlement.

2009-06-29T21:49:00.014-04:00

So, this was our challenge Saturday Morning. To move a 12x18 NS C&P out of it's barn, across the barn and up a ramp and into a truck with three ambitious types: Myself, of G. Johanson, Printer, Nick of Mama's Sauce Printery, and of course sweet Polly, the intern who took most of the photos you will see here from an I-phone.

We used a large rental with a hydrauling lift gate. We thought the hydraulic lift would be larger than it turned out to be, but it worked anyway. But we had to take it from the opposite side of the barn from where we expected to load it. Fortunately, the Barn is a braced frame structure with floor summers. After a bit of a tenuous start, we managed to lift her with a pallet jack and begin to wheel her out.

We rolled it to a point where it had to pivot. The leading edge of the tail gate was nearly a forty-five degree edge. This posed a slight dilemna since the pallet jack wheels are about the diametre of a Silver Dollar at best. She would not simply roll right on to the lift gate.

Here I am laying pipes down in an effort to turn the press slightly, and into position.

After the pipe idea was aborted, we decided to simply bring the press AND the pallet jack up on the tailgate together. We used four "come-alongs" to winch the press over that steep incline you see the front wheel of the jack about to navigate. It was a slow process.

Finally we got the Press and Pallet Jack on board. Polly flipped the switch, and it's up, up and away.

Here's Nick and me just standing there amazed that we managed to hustle 2800 lbs of iron and steel from way out there to way up here! Of course you noticed that the ink disk has been removed, as was the flywheel.

And, of course, we must include trusty intern Polly. Hey . . . uh . . . who's taking the picture?

The press was secured by 4 one-thousand pound strapping from the come-alongs. It was hauled in this manner down to Mama's Sauce in Winter Park some forty miles away - where it will be restored and resurrected.

Ok, Polly, where do we go from here? Lunch in DeLand?

Thanks, Nick and Polly for the fun afternoon! And the Dos Equus, Quesadillas, kaffee con leche, and some neat memories. I should be down in Winter Park this coming Thursday with an orbital sander. Hopefully we can get this press rolling inside of a month. The only real sticking point is the impression throw-out lever, which is binding at the bearing. This shouldn't prove to be too difficult to un-stick. Overall, the press has a lot of surface rust, but the years of ink and apparently liberal oiling has, in fact, resisted the elements well. A few bucket loads of Diesel Fuel and Transmission Fluid and she'll be good as new!

So, what did y'all do last Saturday?

-gary

G. Johanson, Printer.