Greenboathouse Press Navigates a Smooth Course In Fine Press Printing

Jason Dewinitz of Greenboathouse Press, is a fine press printer who hails from Western Canada. He is also an award winning book designer who has thrown open his studio doors to give us this friendly and laid back tour. His current studio isn’t on a waterway anymore, so for the interesting background story on the name, read more here.

THE LOCATION Greenboathouse Press is located in Vernon, British Columbia, a year round tourist destination in the lower southern region of BC. The workshop is attached to the house and is 20 by 24 feet (480 square feet), otherwise known as not big enough. While I certainly appreciate the community that a shared space offers, I prefer to work alone (or with an apprentice), so I cherish my private space.

EFFICIENTLY PRODUCED SHOP I was going to say my space is simply a glorified two-car garage, but “glorified” is a bit of an overstatement. The upside of a garage is, of course, the garage doors, but in my case it’s also helpful that both the electrical panel and furnace room are off the garage, as I needed to run a 220V line and running water to my Monotype Super Caster. The ground-level entry and concrete floor are also great, considering that the casting machine likes to spill molten metal all over the place. As for a floor plan, as can be seen in the photos, I’ve set up a number of workstations, for cutting paper, setting type, printing, casting, and working on machine bits & pieces. Although every square inch of space is taken up, it’s an efficient and reasonably comfortable area conducive to getting things done.

FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE SHOP I’m pretty fond of every single thing in the shop, likely due to the fact that only about 30% of my equipment is currently set up there. The bulk of my stuff is at the print shop I’ve set up for my students at Okanagan College, so what’s in my shop at home is the best of it. Aside from the machines and tools, likely the two features I appreciate the most are the long work bench at the back of the shop (for setting type) and the shelving unit behind the press, which holds all of the stuff one needs while printing (ink, reglets, leads/slugs, furniture, tools, etc.) at arm’s reach while printing.

PRESSES I work almost exclusively on a Vandercook 15-21, the adjustable bed of which is crucial in my shop given that I have quite a bit of European type that’s not .918”. At the college shop I also have an SP-25 Power and a giant 14.5” x 22” C&P. I’ve had a couple of SP-15s pass through as well, which I sold to get the SP-25, although I’m currently looking to sell the 25 in order to get my hands on a 219 or Uni III (I need another press with an adjustable bed, and the 25 is simply more than I need in terms of size).

MOST VALUABLE SHOP TOOL Where to start…value, of course, being relative, I have a handful of tools that are worth a fair penny, and a few of those are also extremely valuable to me in terms of utility. At the top of the list would probably be my point-micrometer, which is one of only a handful in existence that measure in (North American) typographer’s points, with increments of 1/16th of a point. This is extremely handy for casting type, but also great for simply measuring type & spacing while setting & finalizing forms. Next to this would be a good alignment gauge and lining gauge, both used for casting. In terms of printing I’d have to say my favourite tool would be a pair of stamp-collecting tweezers that are ideal for pulling out sorts & spacing when correcting forms. And, by the way, I can’t seem to find these things anywhere, so if anyone has a source please let me know!

FAVORITE INK & COLOR When I inherited my first press & etc. from Caryl Peters (of Frog Hollow Press in Victoria, BC) with whom I very informally apprenticed, she also passed along two partial cans of a black ink that has, in my experience, no equal. It was a formula developed by Stephen Heaver and produced by Hostmann-Steinberg. The stock is long gone, but even after 14 years in the can, the stuff prints like nothing else I’ve worked with: perfect viscosity, deep, rich but matte black, and holds up for hours on the rollers. My two cans are almost gone now, so I contacted Hostmann-Steinberg in Canada who pulled the formula up from their US division and they were kind enough to make a big tub of the stuff for me, but I have to say it’s just not the same. I’m pretty sure they scrimped and used synthetics, and the new formulation is far too thin and soft. I’ve found, though, that if I work some out on the glass and (gulp) leave it exposed for about 3 days, then skim off the top skin, it works pretty well. Wish that I could find a stash of the old stuff though!

CLEAN-UP ROUTINE I have a very simple wooden cradle that holds both my oscillating and rider roller carriage, as well as my two rubber rollers, and this makes clean-up pretty easy. I use California Wash, mixed 50/50 with water, and paper towels to get most of the ink off, and then do the final cleaning with straight Wash and clean rags. I’ve got clean-up down to about 15 minutes. I use a lot of heavyweight Bounty paper towels, and chopped up old cotton sheets for rags.

OIL OF CHOICE I use pretty much any non-detergent oil, I’m not fussy as I use very thin coats on the rails and just a few drops in the oil holes.

BOXCAR BASE + PLATE SYSTEM I use the standard Boxcar base with standard plates. As I’m not doing job work and thus don’t feel the need to pound deep into chipboard, this simple configuration has worked very well for me. My most challenging job with polymer thus far was the Feliciano book, which was an alphabet book with each letter having two fill plates and a stroke plate with VERY fine lines. The registration was near impossible, but the plates did their job and the results were darn solid (see images).

PIED TYPE It all goes in the casting machine. Last summer I melted down over 2,000 lbs of old type and cooked them into fresh ingots for the Super Caster. Now there’s a fun job.

ORGANIZATION ADVICE Mostly I just follow  “A place for everything, and everything (usually) in its place…”

PRINTING TIPS Roller bearers. Sure, the Vandercook allows for careful height adjustment to the rollers, but that does nothing for maintaining inking with uneven or gapped lines of text. Bearers actually control the height of the rollers, and can be taped here and there to address the text arrangement. And, change your packing/tympan with every new form. And, keep your press clean. I’ve seen presses that look as though they haven’t been cleaned in decades, and the result is always crappy printing. And one last secret: keep the ink light on the press, just a kiss of contact between roller & type, and then double-ink every pass.

Many thanks to Jason for this look inside the Greenboathouse Press! Visit Jason’s Pinterest page to see more of his presswork.