Central New York Couple’s Letterpress Excursion

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

Letterpress love is in the air! Or at least that’s the case of this soon-to-be-hitched Central New York couple, Douglas Trojan and Erin Reynolds. The pair printed custom letterpress invitations for their upcoming Big Day, and the experience has brought them closer by means of laughs, inks, and whole lot of printing fun!

The couple caught up with us first with a nifty visit last month to get the full tour of Boxcar Press (as well as to get a few pointers on their project). Armed with good advice, Douglas and Erin purchased their custom made plates and the rest is history.

Check out their printing adventure from start to finish here and get a sneak peak at the finished invitation!

Boxcar Talk With Lenor Mirochna of Paprika Letterpress + Design

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Cathy

Take a large helping of letterpress love, add a smidgen of luck when finding the perfect press, pour in slowly more than a few cups of excellent design experience, add an enchanting creative streak, and you’ve got the divine recipe behind Paprika letterpress + design. Lenor Mirochna lets us in on the flavorful story behind the letterpress and design studio powerhouse. Read on to get the full scoop.

SPICING UP LETTERPRESS Paprika letterpress + design has been an adventure since day one with a serendipitous beginning. Short story about my background: I studied design at a number of different colleges and universities from Detroit to NYC. I began my design career in the mid 70’s; the beginning of computer typesetting where artwork was prepared using rapidograph pens, Xactos, photostats and hand done mechanicals. There is a LOT to be said for the fabulous resources and possibilities of today’s graphic design. My experience has included ad agency design and art direction, owner of several graphic design firms, freelance design, commercial printing sales and print services buyer.

INK IN THE BLOOD I was interested in the process of letterpress and looking for a creative venture where I could use my design skills and love of color. I began to think about a local printer I met about 10 years ago who had a print shop in my town. On a whim, I stopped in one day and asked Dan Dewechter, the owner of Constitution Press, a 120 year old, continuously operating print shop, whether he had any letterpress equipment he was interested in selling. As luck would have it, he did. In fact he was consolidating and liquidating much of his shop having decided to explore other career options.

That is where I first met my circa 1916 Chandler and Price 8 x 12 press, all 1250 lbs of iron. Along the way I also contacted Alan Runfeldt of Excelsior Press in Frenchtown, New Jersey. Interested in more hands-on-printing experience, I signed up for a day-long class with Alan and had a blast printing on a variety of presses.

FLOURISHING IN THE GARDEN STATE I am currently set up in a small garage studio. I hired some renovation help and we painted, insulated, refreshed and reorganized the space 6 months ago and now it is much more aesthetically pleasing as well as energy efficient. I am looking to expand my capabilities by purchasing another press by the end of the year.

PRINTING LEGACIES As a printer for over 30 years, Dan Dewechter has a wealth of knowledge and experience that you can’t find in a textbook. He not only worked with me, but also gave me pointers and patiently explained the idiosyncrasies of the process. He was generous with his time, talent and skills and is the person to credit or blame for what I ‘m doing now — right, Dan?

DESIGNED FOR PRINT I design and print. Currently, I am continuing to add to a line of greeting cards, notecards, and soon-to-come calendars. It’s been an adventure exploring the techniques and mechanics of letterpress printing. I have just scratched the surface of custom work and have collaborated with clients on custom pieces which has been extremely rewarding and a ton of fun.

PRINTING FEATS Letterpress printing is a beautifully complex yet simple process. I love the colors, the feeling and the fun exploration of papers and technique. I’m not really sure I’d call it “my life’s work”. I really like it and I’ll see where it takes me.

BOXCAR’S ROLE It was Alan who suggested I check out Boxcar Press to purchase plates as well as acquire more knowledge of the letterpress industry. Frequently posted videos and industry information on the Boxcar website has deepened my letterpress education. All of my plates are ordered through Boxcar Press and they have been an excellent, reliable resource for me.

GETTING STARTED When it was time to get my press, I contacted Dan, rented a trailer, asked my engineer husband to check out the situation and set the moving date.

When I arrived to pick up the press (haha- that’s a good story there) the fun began. (see the pictures) Dan was invaluable and incredibly generous in helping me get my shop set up. Along with the press he gave me just about every possible piece of equipment needed to get started and in fact things I didn’t even know I needed.

Seriously. He included quoins, 3 C &P chases, furniture, sets of guides, large roll of tympen paper, packing sheets, extra set of BRAND NEW rollers still in their box, cans of pre-mixed pantone ink colors, press wash, large “stone” on which to lock up the base, roller puller tool, sticky finger goo and stacks of different types of paper to get me started. And more. And he helped move the press. Dan was amazingly helpful and I like to think he was happy to see the press go to someone who would work it and not sold as scrap.

WHAT’S NEXT My plans for 2012 include adding a new press to my shop, working with more custom clients and continuing to create new pieces for the Paprika letterpress + design line. My retail outlets include stores in Charleston, South Carolina, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and other areas of Pennsylvania. My cards have been featured in Culture Cheese Magazine and soon to be in USEF’s Equestrian magazine. In the future I’d like to grow the Paprika Letterpress brand specifically within the specialty retail and hand-made-art market nationwide.

Many thanks to Lenor for letting us take a look into the wonderful world of Paprika Letterpress + Design!

Boxcar Talk With Elizabeth Rittmeyer & Kelsie ZImmerman

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Cathy

Is there anything Elizabeth Rittmeyer and Kelsie Zimmerman can’t do? The energetic Elizabeth finally sat down with us to spill the details on just how ambrosial letterpress life at Sugarcube Press can be.

SUGAR, SPICE & EVERYTHING PRECISE I’m a 95%-self-taught letterpress printer, been doing it for 16 years. I’m a Portland, Maine transplant to SoCal via Seattle (I gloat profusely about living in the coolest places). The entire family is back in Maine so my husband and daughter go for 2 months and I get one before the printshop needs me back. I’m over 21, vegetarian 19 years, have a rational and hyper-creative husband who independently designs bags and i-gear for other companies like NAU and Apolis and he does production in Vietnam 4 months of the year (thus I become uber-super-mom). Our 11 year-old daughter is also so creative that she gets up at 6:30 a.m. to write stories before school. I love squirrels, pre-1900 books, tiny cut glass s&p shakers, ‘50’s odds-n-ends for my 1951 house with round livingroom, thrift stores and side-of-the-road finds, my proudest being a fire-orange Danish chair with swooped teak arms.

INK IN THE BLOOD In 1995 I moved from Portland, Maine with my husband to a little rural island off of Seattle; he got a sweet job in K2 Snowboards. Well, after one trip on the ferry (after I missed the first two), through Seattle traffic, I decided there was just no way I could commute to Microsoft every day. What’s a girl to do on a wooded island with one blinking red light? Be the coffee-girl at a café. Lucky for me Jennifer and Ron Rich of Oblation remembered me from a book fair and asked if I wanted to be their paper-maker, which I did until I learned to print (enough) to be their printer for 2 years. With their success they left for Stumptown and I stayed on my island and did online weddings only. Looks like I was hooked.

CALIFORNIA DREAMING We recently moved to a new space in our sweet little Ojai downtown, a 6-minute walk from my house. We have 800 square feet with softly glowing buttercream walls, two all-windowed garage doors facing directly East with view of the mountains and with the doors fully-open we’re virtually “outside”.

Kelsie has a design-center, we have a processing + shipping area, and a near-half is the print shop. I am the second owner of my 1956 8×10 C&P named Dwight (she’s a girl), and 10X15 Heidelberg named The Butterfly that was bought from Frank Boross of Toxic Coyote Press (he had her for 25 years). Jack, my leggy Chihuahua mutt pound-dog, guards it all.

PRINTING LEGACIES I love Bonnie Thompson Norman of The Windowpane Press in Seattle. Her books are letterpress and lino-cuts; I adore Madeleine Zygarewicz of Panorama Press, she’s a doll; and I get really happy looking at 9SpotMonk, I gravitate to overlays and splash. Though I am amazed at people who achieve tight-registration and I totally bow to them, I prefer “movement” with overlays and juxtapositions that create new colors.

DAILY GRIND “Design” happens every day; it’s inspiration and whimsy from a thrift-store goody or a conversation with a pal. My humor tends towards sarcasm and irony, so our cards are pretty funny. I like the one-offs and tongue-in-cheek play with words we English grads live for. These days I do quick pencil sketches and collaborate with my partner and designer-guru extraordinaire Kelsie Zimmerman; she uses our sketches and ideas and gets them plate-makin’ ready to send to Boxcar.

DESIGNED FOR PRINT I’ve always been a “designer” in the sense I draw, collage, carve, arrange and conceive. Up until I met Kelsie in 2007, I was the solo-business owner and designer. Our collaboration allows me to concentrate on Sugarcube’s printing; I print every single thing that comes out of the shop to supply over 400 stores.

FULL TIME FUN I work full-time for Sugarcube Press and thankfully, finally, for no one else! Every-other year I’d panic and go get a desk job. But this past year was sweet to permanently be at my cast-iron “desk” all day; now I stand at the C&P for a solid 5 hours before it gets too tiring, then it’s off to other necessities: packaging, shipping, calling on invoices, and brainstorming.

PRINTER’S PARADISE In general, being a printer of good caliber; I print every single card and ephemera from Sugarcube Press on the C&P. Sugarcube has grown exponentially thanks to my go-getter-never-say-I-can’t partner, Kelsie. She rocks! We are both really proud of our growth over the years.

BOXCAR’S ROLE Our first NSS in 2008 found us paying thousands of dollars for wood-mounted metal that due to a changed formula (later discovered) was crumbling away as I printed. I was freaking out! We met with Boxcar at that show and decided to make the change to polymer plates: lightness in shipping, less cost in ganging–up images, less hazardous waste in it’s making, and polymer doesn’t smash (whoops) like magnesium.

PRESS HISTORY I found my first press, named Big ol’ Pearl, a 10×15 1890’s C&P, in the Printer’s newspaper, in 1997-ish, in PDX. Drove down from the island in a huge Ford truck and extra-long Uhaul. Really spendy ferry ticket. My driver, backing it up in a rain-sodden field, became mired in the mud 500 feet from my studio door. One guy suggested we dump the press in the muck and drag it! The other guy (hello, Einstein) pointed out the press, being in a trailer, was already on wheels, we just needed a come-along, and a few hours of cranking got her inside with nary a drop of rain on her.

SHOP TIPS If you want to grow, get a partner! Kelsie and I both do different jobs and our expertise is necessary for our success. She designs and does all of the layout and haggling to get our catalogs done, online pop-up sales, keeps reps happy and trade shows looking sweet. I’ve mostly got the printing and stock under control; ya gotta make it to sell it!

WHAT’S NEXT Making more of everything and tripling growth.

Big thanks to Elizabeth and Kelsie for showing the sweeter side of letterpress with Sugarcube Press! Check out their nifty videos here!

Boxcar Talk With Bill Paulus

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

When he showed up on the printing scene in 1962, Bill Paulus was armed with attributes that are a trifecta of the trade: common sense, passion, and a laser-focused 24 hour workday attitude. Fast forward a half a century later and you’ll find that Paulus happily occupies a letterpress menagerie in the Atlanta, Georgia area. And life has never been peachier.

Read on to get the full story on Bill!

PASSION FOR PRINTING I am Bill Paulus, born in 1950 in Zanesville, Ohio. I began my career in printing in the last days of June, 1962. Only have a high school education, according to establishment quid pro quo. In reality, 50 years of O.J.T. while attending the school of hard knocks.

INK IN THE BLOOD Like it or not, (and I did not like it.) I was conscripted by my mother and stepfather out of economic necessity.

LETTERPRESS MANCAVE I have a private letterpress shop, letterpress studio, or letterpress mancave (choose your preference) in the basement of my home located just a stone’s throw (no pun.) from Stone Mountain Park in Metro Atlanta, Georgia. Equipment, or toys, to date: 1917 vintage 10 x 15 C&P New Series hand feed; 1930’s vintage 10 x 15 Kluge Automatic; 1954 vintage 10 x 15 Heidelberg Windmill; late 40’s / early 50’s vintage Miehle Vertical V50; 1917 vintage Intertype linecasting machine; 1960’s vintage Ludlow Typograph; 1920 vintage 34 inch Challenge Diamond power paper cutter; 1940’s vintage Challenge floor model paper drill with round corner attachment; 1954 vintage Rosback auto stitcher; and a 1936 vintage 14 x 20 Baumfolder.

PRINTING LEGACIES The Late George Lilienthal, Donald Mathis of Zanesville, Ohio, and Ben Franklin.

DESIGNED FOR PRINT My forte has always been printing production in the areas of letterpress (my first love), offset, flexo, diecutting, embossing, and foil stamping.

FULL TIME FUN From 1962 until 2009, I was printing full time. During this time, a day variously consisted of 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, or 72 hours. There were a couple of times I was printing one way or the other seven 24 hour days non stop. Take note: The word “work” has not been mentioned. I was having too much fun to classify what I was doing under the category of “work”. Adding to it all, if I was moving printing equipment, well, that was fun in overdrive.

PRINTER’S PRIDE The many letterpress and offset printing production awards ranging from honorable mention to best in category presented by peers in the graphic arts industry. Also, a period of 44 years of moving printing equipment without any kind of mishap.

BOXCAR’S ROLE They have provided an alternative to corrosion prone magnesium plates, created a very useful web site, provided free equipment manual downloads, and, best of all, provided customer service that is second to none.

SHOP TIPS

Always have clean hands and a pure heart.
Safety is always the first priority. Period!
Never, ever lose a customer’s order.
When moving printing equipment, never yank or jerk; be slow and methodical, using common horse sense, and never place your body or body parts in a pinch or crush zone.

WHAT’S NEXT As health permits: Keep on learning. Print. Connect the Intertype to the gas line and cast my first line of type on it. Print. Also build up the Ludlow and cast my first line of type on it. Print. And just for kicks and grins, seek out some of the still living pundits, who in the 60’s and 70’s were chanting “ Letterpress is dead,” and rub their haughty noses in the face of the letterpress renaissance. (Recreation?)

Big thanks to Bill for letting us take a sneak peak into the mind of a fellow letterpress aficionado!

Boxcar Ventures Out

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Cathy

It’s always a happy experience when we meet our customers at shows and conferences. However, we get particularly excited when we can come to your place and meet you in your creative space!

Recently during winter travels, I was able to visit two customers in the Boston area. It meant navigating the Boston subway and bus system but it was such a kick to visit and get a tour from women printers and entrepreneurs, Smudge Ink and Albertine Press.

Shelley Barandes of Albertine Press is in Somerville, Massachusetts in a warehouse that also houses not one, but two chocolate companies. That is the aroma you smell when you follow the signs that direct you to her space. She has a large, open studio with plenty of natural light for printing and finishing.

I admired her Vandercook where her printer Matt was working and her Heidelberg windmill, not to mention seeing a pilot, a cutter and some tabletops. On occasion, Shelley will teach a class to spread the love of letterpress, but not as often now that she has a pre-school daughter. Shelley is busy!

A bus and another warehouse later, I was able to a have nice visit and tour with Deb Bastien and Kate Saliba of Smudge Ink. They are in Charlestown, Massachusetts along the waterfront. What amazed me was the quantity and variety of presses our customers have. I lost count of presses at Smudge after five. Smudge Ink actually has a long history tied with Boxcar Press and we feel like we’ve grown in this business with them.

They have a nice blend of letterpress with offset and everything was printed in gorgeous, vibrant colors (you should see their shelves!). Everyone was hard at work while I was there and yes, I took note of their polymer plate recycling box.

While my visits were brief, it was special to see these talented ladies and where they find their creative energy. I was impressed above all at how they have built their businesses and thrive. And I especially appreciated their warm welcomes on short notice. Our Boxcar doors are always open should you ever want to reciprocate and drop in here!

Boxcar Talk With Nina Interlandi Bell

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

Like Nina Interlandi Bell from Tweedle Press, deep dish pizza got its start in the Windy City of Chicago, where people know their dough. Like an artisanal slice, her printings are filled to the brim with flavorful creativity. Whether you get the tried & true cheese style, a smorgasbord of meat toppings home-run, or the more well-honed and inspired artichoke and basil, Nina’s letterpress work and these pizza pies never fail to delight.

Read on to find out more on the commanding and captivating Nina Bell.

THE NATURAL PRINTER I’m a a graphic and web designer, letterpress printer, paper maker, and lover of nature and local/organic food, with a dash of rock and roll. Also, I want to be a cowboy.

FOR THE LOVE OF LETTERPRESS When my husband (iHub, also know around the shop and our house as “Minister of the Office Of Fun”) and I got married 5 years ago, I helped to design and assemble our invitations. I had them letterpress printed by a local printer, and knew when I saw them that I wanted to learn how to do it. I took several series of classes at Columbia in Chicago where I learned to work with cylinder presses, type, and plates, and also helped out up at the Platen Press Museum in Zion where Paul Aken taught me my platen press chops. I wouldn’t necessarily claim one particular moment of insight when I realized I wanted this to be my full time job, but everything just sort of coalesced: my lifelong love of paper and desire to own a card shop, all my years of experience with graphic design, my (apparently) genetic desire to be a business owner, and the fact that I love to get dirty and tinker with dangerous equipment.

PRINTING LEGACIES I knew when I saw the miniature empire that Jen from Starshaped Press had built that it would be possible for me to do what I envisioned. I wanted the flexibility of creating my own schedule, the satisfaction of having people choose to spend their hard earned money on beautiful things that I design and print for them, plus the ability to take time off for kids when I need to (which will be March, 2012!). Paul Aken too, of course, without whom I would never have acquired any of my equipment and who I credit with helping me move closer to accepting imperfection. Still working on that.

THE DESIGNER & THE PRINTER I do everything! My career experience has been 11 years of graphic and web design, and I’ve been printing for the last 4 years. However, I didn’t actually go to school for any of this – my music degree was supposed to help me be a recording engineer for when my band got famous, but that didn’t work out so well. Luckily I have always been a designer at heart, and creating show posters and websites for my band ended up giving me the experience I needed to land real design jobs. It all looks very intentional in retrospect.

THE DAILY GRIND Usually I end up procrastinating on big design jobs because getting over that initial hurdle of inspiration is so intimidating. Once I’m up against a deadline and have assured myself that there are no other “important” internet tasks for me to complete, I usually end up staring at the blank screen for a while. Once something gets me into the zone – it could be an image, a piece of text, or a color combination – then there’s no stopping me. Coveted episodes of TV on the DVR be damned! I can remain glued to my computer, despite iHub’s desperate attempts to force me to “relax”, for a very long time indeed.

FULL TIME PRINTER BY DAY, CREATIVE CHAMP BY NIGHT Just about. I still do a bit of freelance design work here and there that is unrelated to Tweedle Press, but most of my time is spent working at the shop. It has been a slow transition from my full time design job to what I’m doing now, but I’m very lucky that the owner at my previous company let me step down my days there gradually as Tweedle Press got busier. I’m still only making about half as much as I was when working full time at my previous design job, but I’m lucky iHub is so darn supportive and the business is growing every year. Continue reading →

Boxcar Talk With Travis Friedrich

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Cathy

The man behind the up and coming Parklife Press, Travis Friedrich, lets us in on the things he can’t do without, his insatiable love for letterpress, the curious journey of his beloved C & P, and his vintage paper cutter.

Friedrich carved out a few minutes to tell us about the things that keep his rollers inked.

(photo credit: Annemie Tonken)

EAST OR WEST, LETTERPRESS IS BEST I grew up in Oregon but have lived in North Carolina for most of my post high school life. I’m 31 now. Although my college degree is in engineering, I’ve always loved print and design. I enjoy making grilled cheese sandwiches, watching tennis, playing ping pong, drinking fancy cocktails, and printing with headphones on.

(photo credit: Annemie Tonken)

INK IN THE BLOOD I’ve enjoyed printmaking since I was about 13 years old — although it was mostly linoleum cuts and a little bit of lithography early on. It wasn’t until about 2005 that I learned about letterpress. At the time, I was living in Portland, Oregon and working at my first post-college job as a mechanical engineer, but I wasn’t wild about what I was doing. I came across a letterpress shop not too far from my apartment, and I thought how cool it would be to be doing something like that rather than sitting in front of a computer all day. By the end of that year, I was very seriously considering trying to find a way to make printing my career.

STUDIO WITH SOUTHERN CHARM Parklife Press exists in a cozy studio at my home. It houses a C&P 10×15, a C&P 12×18, and a 123 year old Challenge paper cutter. My favorite thing about the studio is probably the lax dress code.

PRINTING LEGACIES Aside from two days of a community college letterpress class (I couldn’t stick with the 2 hour commute required to stay in the class), all of my letterpress education has been “virtual.” The Briar Press discussion boards, the Letpress list-serve, and Boxcar training videos have been invaluable.

DAILY GRIND Most of the design work I do is for wedding clients. I start by asking for as much info about design preferences and inspiration as the client can give, then I put a few initial first drafts together for the client to look at. At that point, the client inevitably loves my least favorite draft, and we go from there, tweaking and refining. It’s amazing though how often I end up loving the final design and am glad that I was pushed away from my initial preferences.

FULL TIME FUN I’m definitely both a designer and a printer. I split my time pretty evenly between the two. I’ve been doing it full time since shortly after I started in 2005, and I’m certainly amazed that I’m able to do this full time. The cubicle job that I had after college was not that awesome. During that time I remember mentioning that I’d love to have a print studio at some point in my life. But I definitely didn’t think it would happen so soon, and I didn’t think it would be a career.

BOXCAR’S ROLE The speed and ease with which I can order and receive a plate is huge. As for the plates themselves, my tiny studio appreciates that Boxcar’s plates take up so little physical space and I love how easy it is to trim, alter, and reposition them. It’s much more flexible than other plate systems.

PRESS HISTORY My first press was a Kelsey 5×8 tabletop, which quickly frustrated me. After just a few months I upgraded to the press I still use — a C&P 10×15 Old Style. I was in the bay area at the time, and came across a guy who had been storing an old press in his warehouse for years, and I bought it from him—despite the fact that I knew I would be moving across the country three months later. Transporting the press to NC from California was not easy, but it was totally worth it—I love that press.

SHOP TIPS Occasionally, take on a job that you’re not sure you can pull off.

WHAT’S NEXT The new Parklife Press website just went online in early February and folks really seem to be liking it. I designed and printed a bunch of brand new invitation designs and re-photographed everything. I also added a bunch of new business content.

Big thanks to Travis Friedrich for letting us shine a spotlight on his creative letterpress talents at Parklife Press!

Did You Know That … Checking Line and Dot Thicknesses Is a Cinch?

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

One of the most common issues we face here in the Platemaking Department at Boxcar Press is determining a sufficient line thickness. Making that ruling means explaining to customers two things – how do you go about checking to see if lines or text are thick enough to hold on your particular plate? What’s the thinnest line that can hold on the plate?

Surprisingly, there’s just one tool you need to utilize in either Adobe Illustrator or InDesign: The Line Tool. If you are using Adobe Photoshop, the Line Tool unfortunately reverts to a minimum line thickness of 1pt. If you are only using Adobe Photoshop to create your file, we highly recommend placing your final file in InDesign and using the Line Tool to check your work.

What do we mean when we talk about our line thickness guarantee? Simply put, if your lines meet or exceed the line thickness as outlined below, we will guarantee they will hold on your plate. If they are under that thickness, it’s hit or miss. Some days you are lucky and other days, you might lose details.

The first thing you need to determine is your line thickness based on your plate type:

– If your plate type is the KF 95, Jet 94FL, or 94SB, you have a line thickness guarantee of 0.25pt or thicker.

– If your plate type is the KF152, 152SB, or 145SHSB, you have a line thickness guarantee of 0.35pt or thicker.

– For all plate types, your dots (like the ones above the letter “i”, periods, or dotted lines) must be 1pt to 1.25 pt or thicker.

THINK FAST! Quick quiz here – what is usually the most common culprit of too thin lines? Crop Marks! More on that later.

Here’s how to use the handy Line Tool to check to see if your lines are thick enough (and plate friendly, too):

You need to first open your file in either Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. We’ll be using a small type sample in Adobe Illustrator to check to see if our lines are plate-friendly for a KF152 plate type. The KF152 plate type has a line thickness minimum of 0.35pt for lines and 1pt to 1.25 pt for dots. We can see that it looks like there are some thin lines in the serif of the Didot typeface… but will they hold?

First, click the Line Tool icon in the tool palette on the lefthand side of the screen in Adobe Illustrator to activate it. If you cannot find it, hover your mouse over the icon that looks like a line to see “Line Segment Tool ()” pop up in a yellow box .

Next, in the control panel up at the top, we’ll select the words “1 pt.” in the dropdown area next to the word “STROKE” with our mouse. You’ll be substituting the “1 pt” and replace it with “0.35pt”.

We’ll select the Zoom tool (Z) and move in because we’ll be doing some close up viewing in the area you are inspecting. Select the line segment with your mouse and move it so it is right next to the bottom part of the “L” in “Letter”. Draw a short line so it is parallel with the thin line you are checking on your art board. It doesn’t have to be very long but this little line segment will be our “ruler” to compare thicknesses.

At this close magnification, we see that our line segment set at 0.35pt is much thicker in comparison to the thinnest line in of the serif on the letter “L”. We will need to add a hairline stroke to boost our text’s thickness to correct this.

To add a stroke, using the selection black arrow tool (V), select all the characters in the word “LETTER.” In our Control panel at the top our screen we should see that the letters only have a fill and that we’d like to add a hairline stroke (about 0.15pt). Click the white area next to “STROKE” to activate the area so we can type in “0.15pt”. Immediately single-click the white area anywhere on the board. This will deactivate your selected text and add the hairline (0.15pt) stroke.

Zoom in again using the Zoom Tool around the line segment we created with the Line Tool and the letter “L”. We can now visually see that the serif on the “L” is as thick as the 0.35pt line. Success!

Delete your line segment and zoom back out. Continue around your artboard to visually check to see if other areas look “safe” as well.

For dots, such as the ones around the heart shape, we’ll need to set our Line Tool weight to “1pt” just to be on the safe side. We’ll repeat the same steps mentioned above to create the line, to zoom in, and visually compare the dots’ diameter against the 1pt line segment we just drew on our art board. Like the thinner lines on the “L”, we’ll need to correct this by adding a much thicker stroke of 0.3 pt to boost our dots’ diameter up to 1pt.

Using the Line Tool to check your work should be a “Must Do” test before submitting your files to your platemaking ticket. If anything appears too thin, you will need to correct it.

A few final instructions to help you be aware of potential trouble spots:

-When creating crop marks in your files – the program default setting is often 0.2 pt or 0.25 pt. Keep this in mind so you can make the necessary changes to your crop mark thickness when you place them.

-Thin lines that curve, particularly in wispy script or calligraphic fonts, are always suspect for being too thin. Give them the support they need to hold on the plate with hairline stroke (if needed).

Stay tuned, letterpress lovers — next we’ll solve the mystery of how to create multiple color files!

Microscopic View

Posted on January 30, 2012 by carrie.valenzuela

Here is a part of a very common printer’s tool. Can you identify it? Here’s a hint: rhymes with coin fee.

A Facelift For Brittle Photopolymer Plates

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Rebecca Miller

Are your polymer plates starting to curl at the edges?

Like our skin, plates can be affected by the weather and age. When humidity levels are low, the plates can look and feel brittle. And with the passage of time, the thinner polymer on the edges of the plates are pulled towards the denser polymer text and images on the front which causes curling. There is a natural aging of the plates as they do have a limited life expectancy but we can offer a few simple steps that can hydrate and give extra life to your plates.

Printight, maker of Toyobo plates KF95 and KF152, offers these suggestions if you have a platemaking system. Boxcar also gives similar steps for the majority of you who are without such equipment.

1. Place your plate back in the washout system for one minute or immerse in water. We suggest room temperature for a quick dunking, a minute may only be necessary if your plates are severely curled.

2. Sponge off the water and place back in the drying oven of the platemaker for 5-10 minutes. We also suggest, alternatively, a hair dryer to warm the plate and make it more pliable (placing your plate in a box and blowing the hair dryer into the box will keep the warm air more contained).

3. After the plate warms and starts to uncurl, place the plate in its bag and set a heavy object on it to keep the shape.

This should help your plates relax so you can adhere them to your base for additional print runs. Some warnings for you – take care to avoid putting your hair dryer too close to the plates and be patient as warming the plates takes time. And watch that you don’t handle them too roughly after the wash and during drying so your relief images don’t chip.

Store your plates flat. One last tip, you may have to check your adhesive backing to determine if it needs to be re-applied to the back of your plate for a secure hold on your base.

If you have some storage and uncurling tips, tell us about them so we can share. It’s great when we can all learn from each other!

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