image close up of boxcar base

How to letterpress print with your Boxcar Base.

how to lock up your base | printing with your base | taking care of your base | troubleshooting

how to lock up your base

For cylinder presses (Vandercooks, Heidelberg Cylinders, etc.)

First, your homework: familiarize yourself with your press’s manual. If you don’t have your manual, find it in the Letterpress Common’s manual collection.

Now, you’ll want to fit the following in your press bed:

  • quoins
  • your base
  • any furniture, reglets, and/or leading to fill up the space around your base and quoins.

Photo of Locking up Vandercook boxcar base

Tighten the quoins somewhat loosely so that the base doesn’t buckle up. Make sure that the base is between both “dead lines” inscribed at the head and foot of the press bed. If your base is over one of these lines, the grippers may hit and dent the base.

For platen presses other than Heidelberg Windmills (i.e. C&P’s, etc.)

First, your homework: read through one or more of the following books.

Now in your chase, you need to fit:

  • your base
  • the quoins
  • any furniture, reglets and/or leading to lock the base in place.

photo of Locking up platen press chase

Step 1. Lock up base and quoins. On an imposing stone, lock up the base, tightening the quoins enough so the base won’t slip out when you carry it to the press. As much as possible, you’ll want your plate to end up in the center, or the bottom center, of the platen for optimum printing and impression.

photo of Locking Platen Press Quoin Key

Step 2. Confirm your base is small enough to fit gauge pins. Most platen presses, other than the Heidelberg Windmill, use gauge pins to hold the press sheet in place during printing. If these gauge pins hit your base during a press run, they’ll smash and damage your base. For this reason, your base needs to be small enough to accommodate gauge pins. (read more about finding the right size base for your particular press)  Most gauge pins measure about an inch long. To give you flexibility in positioning them (and to make sure you’ll have room for furniture and quoins), make sure your base is 1 to 1.5 inches smaller in width and length than your chase.

photo of Figuring Gauge Pin Location

Step 3. Figure out gauge pin position. After you’ve locked up your base and put the chase in the press, position your gauge pins in a spot that won’t impact the base during printing. Place the gauge pins below and beyond where the base sits in the chase. The gauge pins will fit in the space between the platen and the furniture. To make sure that the gauge pins don’t hit the base, turn the press over slowly by hand on impression while peering in the mouth of your press. You’ll be able to see if there is impact between gauge pins and base; if there is, adjust the gauge pins accordingly.

photo of Setting up Gauge Pins

(optional) Step 4. If the paper isn’t releasing from the plate, make a frisket. If your paper sticks to your plate during printing, the tongues of the gauge pins probably aren’t strong enough to pull the paper away from sticky ink. In this circumstance, use a frisket. First, move the grippers of the press to the outside of the base—otherwise they’ll smash the base on impression. Then, tie a string or place a rubber band between the two upright grippers so that it will catch the paper and pull it off the printing plate. Make sure that the string/paper you tie between the gripper arms doesn’t overlap with any of your printing.This frisket will also mask out any non-printing areas of the plate which are inking up and prevent those areas from appearing on your paper.

photo of frisket

for Heidelberg Windmills

Your homework.
First, memorize the Heidelberg Windmill Operation Manual. This will help explain the differences between the windmill and other platen presses.
Next, complete a thorough reading of one or more of these books.

  • Cleeton & Pitkin’s General Printing
  • Polk’s The Practice of Printing
  • Mill’s Platen Press Operation

In your chase, you’ll need to fit:

  • your base
  • the quoins
  • any furniture, reglets and/or leading to lock the base in place.

Step 1. Lock up your base and quoins. On an imposing stone, lock up the base, tightening the quoins enough so the base won’t slip out when you carry it to the press. Whether you’re using gripper register or lay gauges, you can put the base right up to two adjacent edges of the chase.

photo of Locking up base on Heidelberg

Step 2. cut out packing beneath where the gauge pins might hit the polymer plate or use a swing-away lay gauge. Keep in mind that paperclip-like lay gauge pins may hit the bottom edge of the base when printing. A way to keep this from marking your press sheet (or impacting your base) is to cut out the packing beneath where the pin hits. If you’re using a swing away lay gauge, you don’t have to worry about cutting out the packing. Read how to use a swing away lay gauge.

photo of swing away lay guage

photo of Measuring for Frisket

photo of Placement on Frisket

Don’t use a frisket attachment unless you have a very small base: We don’t recommend running with a frisket attachment unless you have a base small enough to position off to the side of the frisket arms. Otherwise, the frisket arms will dent the surface of the base.

how to print with the boxcar base

1. Clean off your base.

photo of Cleaning Platen Press Base

2. Lock up your base in your chase or press bed.

3. Register your letterpress plate to your base.

photo of Plate without air bubbles

photo of Plate with air bubbles

Before peeling off the silicone paper backing that covers your adhesive, make sure no air bubbles are beneath the silicone. Air bubbles between the adhesive and the plate can cause uneven inking. If there are air bubbles, work them out with your fingers by pushing the bubbles toward the plate’s edge. Prick any remaining bubbles with an exacto knife. Then you can push the air out from the hole you just made.

photo of Aligning plate to grid

Now peel off the silicone paper backing. Take a horizontal or vertical element in your plate (this could be your registration marks, or a horizontal line in your artwork) and line it up to the grid on your base. Though registration marks add to plate size and plate cost, they aid positioning a lot, so their cost is often worth it because of the time saved during setup (we generally use registration marks on all jobs in the Boxcar print shop). Stick the plate down on the Boxcar Base.

First, let’s talk about what are registration marks. Registration marks print outside the trim area of printing. They can include bulls-eye targets, crop marks, plate information, etc. These marks allow the printer to accurately align separate letterpress plates for multiple color print jobs and better align cuts when trimming. How do you tell whether you need registration marks for your job? If you are letterpress printing a job that has two or more colors that print up against each other or overprint each other, registration marks help you to set up each plate color for a close printing with minimal to no adjusting. If you have a letterpress printing design with bleeds, crop marks are useful for a proper paper trim after printing. If you are printing a design with scores and folding, having those marks designated outside your trim area is helpful for die cutting and finishing work. If you are sending your letterpress printing project to another location for cutting and finishing, registration marks can be a very smart move for a successfully trimmed job. If you just want guidelines for trimming, crop marks make a good template. If you are adding registration marks to your plates, here’s how to use them to register your plate to your base: Plastic backed letterpress plates are see-through and you’ll be able to see and use your Boxcar Base grid lines for registering. Place a registration mark over a grid line at an intersection where two lines cross. This will be your same starting place for the registration marks on a second color plate.

4. Feed a sheet of paper through your press, taking an uninked impression of the polymer plate. This impression will firmly attach your plate onto your base, ensuring that the first pass of the inking rollers meets a type high surface. Also, you’ll use this sheet of paper (with the uninked impression on it) to register your paper to the press in the next step.

photo of Paper feeding through press

5. Register your paper to your base.

Take your sheet of paper with the uninked impression. You’ll also need a printout of your artwork showing the trim edge (printed to exact size). You’re going to do some measuring, ideally using [a line gauge]. You’ll want to measure multiple points on each side of the paper to make sure things are square.

  • If you have registration marks, measure the distance between your registration marks to the edge of the paper.
  • First, let’s talk about what are registration marks. Registration marks print outside the trim area of printing. They can include bulls-eye targets, crop marks, plate information, etc. These marks allow the printer to accurately align separate letterpress plates for multiple color print jobs and better align cuts when trimming. How do you tell whether you need registration marks for your job? If you are letterpress printing a job that has two or more colors that print up against each other or overprint each other, registration marks help you to set up each plate color for a close printing with minimal to no adjusting. If you have a letterpress printing design with bleeds, crop marks are useful for a proper paper trim after printing. If you are printing a design with scores and folding, having those marks designated outside your trim area is helpful for die cutting and finishing work. If you are sending your letterpress printing project to another location for cutting and finishing, registration marks can be a very smart move for a successfully trimmed job. If you just want guidelines for trimming, crop marks make a good template. If you are adding registration marks to your plates, here’s how to use them to register your plate to your base: Plastic backed letterpress plates are see-through and you’ll be able to see and use your Boxcar Base grid lines for registering. Place a registration mark over a grid line at an intersection where two lines cross. This will be your same starting place for the registration marks on a second color plate.
  • If you don’t have registration marks – choose an edge of your artwork. This can be the baseline of your type or the top of your illustration. Measure from that point to the edge of the paper.
    Photo of measuring paper

Now measure those exact same points on your laser printout. Your numbers should be the same if you’re in good register.

If your measurements are off, move your paper (either with gauge pins or press stops) until your measurements are equal. When it’s not possible to move your paper, you may need to move your polymer plate or your base as well. You can move whichever is easier. To reposition the plate, just peel the plate up, adjust, and smooth back down. Don’t worry about tearing the adhesive or harming this flexible plate—both are very durable. But as with any typographic surface, be gentle and your printing and plates will thank you.

6. Mix your ink. Ink up your polymer plate. Adjust roller height.

Polymer plates pick up ink pretty much the way lead type does. In general, because photopolymer provides such a flat printing surface, you might not need your rollers quite so low as with lead type. Read more about mixing and storing your letterpress ink.

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Step 7. Makeready.
Makeready is the process of balancing out the impression and inking on your printing.

8. Print!

Since polymer plates mounted on a base are type-high, there is nothing keeping you from printing type at the same time! Many printers will print a form that includes a smaller Boxcar Base with a polymer image design with metal or wood type combined around one or more sides of the base. This is a great use of both when you want to add an image.

9. Clean off your base & plates and store your plates.

  • If you get ink on your base, clean the base immediately with any press wash. Clean your plates with press wash.
  • Pull your plate off the base.
  • If you’re not saving your plate, recycle it.
  • If you are saving your plate, make sure your silicone paper is clean and hasn’t attracted any dust. Also make sure no dust, dirt or grime has gotten onto the adhesive. Then press the silicone lining paper onto the adhesive-side of the plate. (If your adhesive becomes dirty, just pull off the old adhesive and replace it with fresh adhesive).
  • It’s ideal to store polymer plates in constant humidity between 50% and 60%. In the very least, avoid extreme fluctuations in the humidity. You can maintain constant humidity by putting your plates in a ziplock bag. Keep your plates away from ultraviolet light that will crack your plate (for instance, store them in a file cabinet or a drawer).
  • Read more about how to clean and store your letterpress plates.
If you start to see gunk stuck in the adhesive (cat hair, human hair, your lunch crumbs, etc.), then it’s time to put new adhesive on your polymer plate. This should be a pretty easy process but does require a little muscle. First, peel up the old adhesive to remove it. You’ll need some good fingernails to get between the adhesive and your plate. Since the adhesive holds onto the plate strongly, you can potentially kink the plastic backing if you're not careful. We recommend that you lay the plate face down on a flat surface. Hold the plate down with one hand while peeling the adhesive off with the other. Try and keep the plate from flexing inordinately while you carefully tug the adhesive off the back of the plate. The adhesive might tear into pieces, but you can simply pull it up in strips. Now, put on the new adhesive. If you have purchased a 12” x 18” sheet of adhesive, lay the blue release paper on a flat surface and have the brown silicone paper side face up. You will remove this silicone paper to show the sticky adhesive. If you have a roll of adhesive, pull out or unroll the adhesive so the sticky side is face up. When you first mount the adhesive to the plate, start with one side or corner of the plate and lay down the plate to the adhesive so that it makes as few air gaps or bubbles as possible. If the bubbles happen, work them out with your fingers or pierce them, through the back of the adhesive, with one prick of an Exacto knife or awl. You should be able to get all the bubbles out at this point. If bubbles form underneath the plate when you mount it to the base, first try working these out to the edges of the plate with your fingers. If that fails, you can puncture the bubbles by sticking an Exacto knife through the BACK of the plastic backing of the plate (the blue side) to release the trapped air.

how to take care of your boxcar base

Keep your base clean. Remove all dirt and debris from both sides of the Boxcar Base before and after use.

photo of cleaning vandercook base in bed

If you ever get ink on your base, clean it immediately with any press wash: you want to try and remove ink from your base before it dries. If ink has dried on your base, we have found Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser (or a generic equivalent) can work wonders on sprucing up your base. Wet the sponge in water, squeeze out until damp and wipe your base. This works well for most bases but if you have a stubborn ink spot, add a little Simple Green to your sponge. If your base has been sitting with ink for years and is still discolored, get a good pair of solvent resistant gloves and a solvent-soaked shop rag. Scrub the surface vigorously. If the ink refuses to budge, you’ll need more abrasion: try a 000 Scotch Brite pad. Soak the Scotch Brite pad in a solvent and gently rub the surface in a circular pattern with the Scotch Bright pad. Don’t scrub too aggressively–try and let the solvent take the ink off instead. The Scotch Brite pad will not damage your base’s grid

Gauge pins and grippers do not treat your base well, so make sure they never hit the base if you’re using a platen press.

Don’t drop your base. If you do drop your base, use a metal file to work down any burrs that might have developed.

Consider the Boxcar Base sleeve—a useful product if you have to lug your base around or if you leave the base out in your print shop. This sleeve protects the base from dings and scratches when not in the press.

troubleshooting

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