Category: Printing Advice

Letterpress Printing Advice

Printing Flyers

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

At one time we printed a lot of grocery store flyers or as this item was known around these parts, “dodgers’’. Read the Full Article . . .

Hard-To-Find Chases

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Section, here Phil discusses chases.

In regard to odd size or hard to find chases:   Let me remind everyone a perfectly serviceable chase can be made out of three quarter inch plywood.  Ordinary construction plywood is not all that suitable, but the multi ply plywood as is used by the companies that make steel cutting dies, works well. Read the Full Article . . .

Choosing A Press

Part of the Metal Type’s Printing Advice section,  Phil gives his thoughts on various presses.

Kluge, Heidelberg or hand fed C & P? All of these machines are good for Letterpress Printing.  These machines will do what the makers say that they will do, and there is no doubt about that at all. Read the Full Article . . .

Cleaning Furniture

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, here Phil discusses cleaning furniture.

Furniture is made of wood or iron or plastic or aluminium or lead.  I have found that a different cleaning process is best for all of these materials.

The easiest is wood, but it can be the cleaning method that produces the most dust.  

I use a small four inch wide belt sander with six inch disc.  I use the coarsest sanding paper for the disc that is obtainable and a pretty coarse grit for the belt.  I have a fairly powerful vacuum attachment on my machine to suck up the sanding dust and I can use this machine indoors quite safely.  To be entirely accurate there is two vacuums on this machine. One is for the disc and the other works on the belt only.

I sand only the edges and ends of the dirty wood furniture that I have, until I can see new surfaces that are mostly  free of ink.    I leave the top and bottom dirty as most of the time this wood furniture is just super dirty with many years of accumulated ink on the six surfaces.  Another reason is that I have found that I can obtain a good and tight lock up by cleaning the edges of the furniture only.  The top and bottom of wood furniture  play no part in a good lockup. Read the Full Article . . .

Paper Ruling

Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, here Phil discusses the long-lost art of paper ruling.

PAPER RULING was my Dad’s first trade. He apprenticed to this at the age of 14 and worked a good part of his life doing this. Dad eventually had to get into printing as it turned out to be impossible to earn a living in small town Regina doing paper ruling only. Read the Full Article . . .