Weekend workings and lessons learning
11Jan
What I worked on this weekend (a work in progress):
My sister’s save the dates! I still need to do two more runs ( I know, I’m crazy ) but I think they’re looking good so far. I had BIG help from my family and my dearest friend Claire who was my apprentice for the weekend. Even though I’m still an apprentice myself! Yay teamwork!
Lessons learned for those are starting out like me:
1. Black ink is like the plague. Avoid it as much as possible when mixing it to make a color. For the brown, it need 4 parts of black but all I needed was a drop.
2. Watch out for the arm grippers! This was my first time using the aluminum base and hah.. classic mistake. My gripper was hitting the base and I was wondering why no ink was spreading on the left side.
3. My Sigwalt press is a beautiful machine but its rollers are not. I think one of the previous owners had used rollers from another press and tried to make it work on the Sigwalt. Result: inconsistent rolling and trucks not perfectly aligning with the rails. Siigh..I think it’s time: Anyone know a good Sigwalt roller supplier?
Another question for other letterpress printers out there: Is there an alternative to taping the rails? I’m using electrical tape and it captures air bubbles at the bottom resulting in bumps. It also doesn’t stick very well.
Observation about the polymer plates: They are great and easy to use. I love that you can just cut them up! My only complaint, which maybe someone can offer some advice about, is that if I press quite hard (which I like to do to give it a nice bite) I will occasionally see some “ghosting” imprint around the design. Is there a way to avoid this?
One tip/trick I’ve discovered regarding the plates: I’ve got some small type on the plates where ink builds up into (especially the descenders of the type). I started off by cleaning it out with a Q-tip but sometimes it left cotton bits or was still too big. The solution are the SofStick Disposable Sponge applicators thanks to my sister who’s a dentist. They’re teeny tiny sponges on the end of a stick so no residue for your type (or your teeth)!
Stay tuned for the final production next week!