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.
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!
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.
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!
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?
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!
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!
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 :>)
