Printing presses

DavidR8

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I’m a self-described print-aholic. I love everything about printing, the smell of the ink, the old mechanical printing presses, font design, typecasting, the whole shebang.

Thankfully my partner shares my passion. Last night we watched a documentary about Jim Rimmer owner of Pie Tree Press, walking the viewer through the process of designing a new font, milling the matrix, casting the font and finally printing a test sheet.

He used some amazing old time machines, two pantographs to reduce the design to type size, a typecasting machine and finally a printing press.

During the dialogue he described how he bought the press and nothing moved, it was locked up solid. He gradually restored it to working condition partly with parts he made using his lathe.

It was quite inspirational (to a print geek like me) and warmed my heart to see these machines working away as designed decades after they were made, producing beautiful print material.

It is my aspiration to eventually be in a position to have a small print shop.


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I really like fonts and typefaces as well. I studied graphic arts in high school and became exposed to silkscreen mostly as well as different typefaces. I spent hours leafing through my Letraset catalogue as if it were candy! I never played with presses (my brother did though and ran his high school newspaper) but I could copy extremely well. So I would hand draw entire font styles just for fun. Later on I translated that into harder material — brass and copper (lots of my letters for architectural signs up and down the Island), as well as stone.

One of my favourite monument tablets was for a little girl who died at about 8 days old. This was back in the early 50’s and her family was not wealthy. She was buried in the town cemetery but with no marker. About 50 years later her older brother asked me to make a marker for her grave, but the only thing he had was a piece of paper his Mom had hand-printed as a death memorial. It was obvious she tried to make it as professional looking as she could which really touched me. So I took the paper and her lettering, enlarged it, and hand cut the words into a slab of white and grey Carrara marble exactly the way she had formatted it. I mounted the marble slab on a single cast bronze plinth to finish it off. We installed it together in the small prairie graveyard in rural Sakatchewan about 15 years ago, so she finally has her marker and in her Mom’s hand as well.

Okay then, on a lighter note, here’s a great book I was just leaving through the other day, circa 1937.

-frank

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That is a wonderful story Frank, thank you for sharing. My mom’s side of the family is in Saskatchewan, Hazenmore to be specific. There’s a kind of beauty to the rolling hills of that province.

Fantastic looking book!
You’re clearly a man of many talents!


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Huh, that’s crazy. My Dad’s parents homesteaded at Limerick in the 1930’s.
 
Limerick and Hazenmore are only 40 minutes apart!


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I went through 7th-12th grades in the 60s.
Although metal shop was my favorite (back then we had a whole wall of lathes, shapers, milling machines, welders etc.)
I also liked graphic arts shop (print shop) & we had some really helpful instructors.
Back then teachers were still allowed to (actually encouraged to) administer swats as a form of corporal punishment for infractions.
Some got very creative, one PE coach had a canoe paddle painted black with a red hourglass on it. Called it the Black Widow.
But by far the most painful was a simple thin 12”stainless ruler & given out by the print shop teacher.
It actually became a badge of honor to survive one of those swats. And you only needed one.
But I digress....
 
I went to high school in the late 60's in the SF Bay Area and took a printshop class. The students printed the
student newspaper (created by the journalism classes), and stuff like graduation announcements, awards and pretty much
anything else that needed to be printed within the school. Most of the machines had been donated by the local newspaper in the 1930's because they were considered obsolete then! The newspaper was printed on a huge
ancient machine that only the teacher was allowed to touch, but everyone had a chance to set type and run the platen
presses that dated to the late 1800's, if I remember it right. We also had some ancient typesetting machines
that had a keyboard like a typewriter which dropped brass slugs for each line of type and then injected molten lead
to created a bar of type. By today's stands all of those machines would be considered unbelievably dangerous,
which in a sense they were. I remember a few minor injuries, nobody was seriously hurt while I was there.
I used to run a German press called a Heidelberg, which was a glorified platen press that fed and extracted the
work: faster and MUCH safer. Good times.


This machine is very similar to what we used in class.

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Heidelberg press identical to the one I used to run.

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Took graphics arts in high school and ran a Multilith 1250 and AB Dick 350(360?). They're both offset presses; work off the principle that oil and water don't mix. Also did letterpress with a hand operated press and a power platen press like the one pictured above. Never liked running the power platen, could picture my hands getting crushed swapping out the paper.

Bruce
 
in the early sixties I learned and worked in a small newspaper and print shop in the small town of Berthoud Colorado. I ran the job presses, linotype, newspaper press, and all the operations including setting hand type and melting lead to pour in press over wood ad mats (I actually have a hot lead mold press machine) ---my salary was 50 cents an hour with no overtime pay and after I learned everything the owner said I would be raised to one dollar an hour. after almost a year and no increase, I asked the owner if I had learned everything and he said yes I could do everything perfect. I then reminded him of his promise of one dollar an hour, but he said he had two kids in college and could only pay 75 cents an hour. I worked long hours there and 17 hours straight every Wednesday till the weekly paper was printed ---at only 50 cents an hour.-- I told him--sorry but I was not putting his children through college
and resigned----I did really enjoy learning all aspects of a small newspaper print shop, and all the nifty machines. Dave
 
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