Cat Plate - Balscote Press Visit: Part Two

As promised, here's another post on what we got up to on our trip to Balscote Press last month.

This is about the rather miraculous process of letterpress printing photographs. No really.

Being the massive losers we are, we decided the only photos that would do for this experiment were of our beloved cats, Basil and Saffy (they have their own blog here). First step is to convert the image to half-tone:

This basically means it's made up of a series of dots. The greater the spacing between the dots, the lighter the area will appear when printed, and in turn, the denser the dots, the darker the area will appear. Genius.

This is then printed to film:

Then we realise it needs to be a negative and print it to film again:

To create something from which we can print, we use this magical little device to create a photopolymer plate from the film. This is a UV process. Don't ask me how it works...

The basics are that the printing areas will harden, and then the non-printing areas of the plate need to be washed away using this hi-tech method:

And you're left with this (ta da!):

This was all done in rather a rush as we were running out of time, so in future we definitely need to go at it slower. We weren't particularly confident we'd get something printable this time, but we were pleasantly surprised. We got our black ink ready:

Here's the inked plate on the Arab:

And the resultant print:

Just ignore the rather unfortunate shape across Basil's face, it's most likely due to over-vigorous scrubbing of the plate during the cleaning stage. Ahem.

Here's another photopolymer plate (not made in a rush) where you can see some very handsome fishes:

So there you have it! We're incredibly excited about the potential of this technique, the possibilities are endless really. We're very much looking forward to experimenting once we have the time, and when our Arab is ready to play of course.

Assembling our Arab Crown Folio Press

I was hoping to come up with some witty title for this post, riffing on Avengers Assemble, but... I got nuthin'. So you'll have to make do with the Ronseal approach instead.

Don't want to run the risk of boring the pants off everyone, so this post will be mostly image-based.

To give a brief bit of background... we were lucky enough to acquire this press through a friend of ours at The Waiting Room. It's a rather convoluted story, but the short version is that we were given the press in exchange for a donation to the excellent Emery Walker Trust. I covered the moving of the press in a previous post, here.

The press most certainly has a fascinating history, if only it could talk. We know it lived at Kelmscott House at some point. It may be bit of a stretch to connect it to William Morris himself, though we can dream!

Some shots of the components before we got started:

(Apologies for the deceased arachnid in this one, at least he's out of focus)

I'm afraid I personally can't take much credit for the actual assembly work, I left that to Sam Boy, my Dad, and our mate Alex.

It was very much a 'boys in the workshop' day. They loved it. Here they are exhibiting some excellent teamwork skills:

One of the hardest things to contend with (other than only having an instruction manual from about 150 years ago), is the weight of the thing. Some components need 2 people to even lift them, and once the press starts taking shape, moving the frame of it becomes nigh on impossible without equipment (or putting your back out).

Some more work-in-progress photos:

(Rope is always handy)

Here you can see it really coming together:

Impromptu (grubby) photography studio:

Me pretending I know how to operate the thing::

Photos like this show quite how much work we've still got to do (of the cleaning and painting kind):

But we're still feeling pretty pleased with ourselves:

So long ways to go yet precious (that's a LOTR quote by the way), but progress made nonetheless. I really need to work on my treadle technique though:

Day 2 of the rebuilt... and it works! Well apart from the lack of a chase. Anyone know where we can get an Arab Crown Folio chase? #letterpress

A video posted by Grey Letter Press (@grey_letter_press) on Sep 12, 2015 at 11:34am PDT

A bit of manual labour

After much searching and some lost opportunities, we've been lucky enough to lay our hands on an Arab Crown Folio platen press. Woohoo!

For those whom that conjures no immediate mental image, it should something like this (this pic from letterpresser.co.uk):

Here's an 1890 advert for it, a beauty I think you'll agree:

Here's what ours looks like:

So, bit of work to be done! Well, I tell a lie. The above is what it looked like a few weeks before we went to collect it. Since then, a lovely fellow called Christopher (in who's barn it was being stored), was kind enough to give most of the components a paraffin bath and now they're looking considerably less greasy. Still plenty to be done, but a bucket load of progress made, certainly.

Phase one of our work with the Arab involved moving it from Christopher's barn, north of Colchester, to my parent's garage, south of Colchester. A surprisingly smooth process, involving 5 people, 3 cars (van plans fell through), tarps, blankets, gardening gloves, and a good bit of elbow grease. In good news, neither the press nor any personnel were injured.

Here are some of the components during the move, I cannot WAIT to get this baby up and running.

And here it is, all neatly stacked up and covered with sheets like a spooky ghost, in its temporary home:

Phase 2 will be rather protracted, as it involves clearing the greenhouse and gigantic hedges from our garden, pouring a concrete base, and building a shed studio to house the press. I'm medium-confident of achieving this over the summer. If anyone has a burning desire to come and help out...?

More posts to follow on our progress. Or lack of, as the case may be.