Switching from lead type?

Here are some differences you'll find between printing with lead type and with a Boxcar Base + photopolymer plates.

When using polymer, you’ll need a printing base to raise your printing plates to type high. Lead type is, of course, type high by design!

You’ll have more flexibility with design when using polymer plates, since you’ll design for plates on computer instead of by hand. Thousands of typefaces are at your disposal (though that doesn’t mean, of course, that you’re required to use them all on the same plate!). Depending on your aesthetics, you can design a classical, traditional look – or try something more freaky and experimental! You can even simulate the look of Monotype and Linotype and hand composition, thanks to the wonders of graphic design programs.

With photopolymer, you can integrate images, line drawings, and halftones into your text. You can create halftones without any tricky camera work. And with multiple color jobs in polymer you have, at your disposal, sophisticated digital methods for separating elements before you're on the press.

Polymer doesn’t wear down. Because of this, a well processed polymer plate – no matter how many thousands of impressions you’ve made with your plate – will provide a strong, consistent printing surface that can give you the same high quality and crispness as freshly cast lead type.

If you want a heavy impression, don’t worry about smashing up your photopolymer. Unlike lead type, which can be permanently damaged from heavy impression, photopolymer doesn’t smash! Its resilience makes polymer the preferred choice of heavy impression commercial letterpress printers.

If you want to print with the lightest impression, polymer is suited for the job because of its level, pure surface. If you're using a Boxcar Base, you won’t have to compensate for uneven heights of any parts of the plate. Because polymer plates don’t have the variables that lead type often has, you can let your press work shine and not worry about adjusting for variations in the typographic surface.

Remember that just as the quality of lead type varies by the talents of the type-founder, the quality of the photopolymer will depend on the skill of the platemaker. And just as with lead type, the quality of a polymer plate’s printing depends on the skill of the printer.

No work-ups!

Unfortunately, there’s no way to distribute your type after you finish printing photopolymer – what will you do with your time?

While reprinting from lead type is the definition of “space inefficiency” (do you have the room to store endless type galleys?), reprinting from photopolymer is a breeze. Photopolymer plates are thin enough to store in a file cabinet. When you’re ready to print the second edition (c’mon, be optimistic), just reposition your plate on your base. The Boxcar adhesive is even reusable on plastic-backed plates.