Category: Printing Advice

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, here Phil discusses creating accordion folds.

If this was just an ordinary job on light weight card stock of about 9 thou; I would just comp up a form of plain old type high scoring rules and go with that.  … Read the rest

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, here Phil discusses Bristol Board.

Bristol Board was the generic name for card stock that ranged in weight from 180 pounds for 1000 sheets of 22 x 28 inches to pretty much double that in thickness.… Read the rest

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, here Phil talks about printing posters.

A big part of our business used to be showcards and or posters.

 At the very first part of my apprenticeship, we printed all posters in 22 x 28 inches on plain posting bristol as compared to writing bristol.… Read the rest

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, here Phil gives advice on removing a press flywheel.

Removing a flywheel, employing a wheel or gear puller is sometimes a necessity.

My comments are:  be real careful here, this can be super tricky.  … Read the rest

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, Phil describes a very unusual print job.

One of the most interesting jobs that we ever did was to print 10 thousand wood rulers that had an angle on one edge.

Job was printed in two colours front and one colour back.  … Read the rest

Part of Metal Type’s Printing advice section, here Phil discusses printing paper bags.

There has been some preliminary discussion about printing paper bags of late.  Questions about soft or hard packing and what kind of plates to use, and so forth.… Read the rest

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, here Phil discusses cutting steel rule.

I cut both steel rule and brass rule on my Rouse cutter all the time. Cutting brass is easy and as far as I can tell requires no more strength of arm or machine than cutting lead.  … Read the rest

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section here Phil discusses customers.

Customers: yes, the bane of every commercial shop.  

The worse by far and away were Architects.  Just so ultra fussy and artistic and inventive.  I printed for two of them and then threw in the  towel.  … Read the rest

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice Section, here Phil discusses printing signs.

At the start of my apprenticeship, we printed a lot of signs.  All kinds of signs.  For Sale, For Rent, Rooms to Rent, etc.

We sold many of these directly from our small shop office, but we also sold all manner of signs to a stationery shop that was located in downtown Regina, by the name of Hazen-Twiss Stationers.… Read the rest

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, here Phil tells us about Ambrosi Printers’ imposing stone.

One fine day, my Dad got a phone call from a caretaker who worked at a down town church hall, to say that the were scrapping two large, old pool tables;  and that the slates from these pool tables were available for the taking.… Read the rest