Technical questions? Ask them here. Printing, Binding, Design

I notice in threads people asking questions about processes of making fine books - type use and production, paper, printing processes, cover materials or various binding structures and thought it might be helpful to have a thread where general questions could be asked and keep the answers in a more easily found place.

I will do my best to answer or find an answer and hopefully some of my fellow makers will join in as well with their expertise.

I will request that we try to keep it on topic and reference back to other discussions for individual book praise or criticism. We'll see if this works!

>1 DWPress: A brilliant idea, thank you Chad.

What would you recommend as areas of focus for an individual beginning to experiment with letterpress, binding, etc. with the lofty ambition of one day publishing fine press works? Which skills should such an individual focus on developing? What equipment should they prioritise purchasing/practicing with? Any other general thoughts on 'beginning'?

That's a pretty open ended question and covers many disciplines.

For a letterpress, a cylinder style press is better than a platen for most work including books. Start looking, they are not cheap. Bindery can be built up as needed. Type can be purchased in monotype form or you can go with polymer and a base. Finding decent foundry type in 2022 is like searching for a unicorn.

Otherwise I would look for a book arts center or individual near you willing to teach. There is a whole lot of information that can only be had by doing. Like anything, it takes time and effort to get good at it.

I applaud your desire to want to make but this may not be the thread for working out a personal journey into the book arts.

I am curious if there is a single kind of binding which is "best", or are there certain types which are ideal for their paper type, page count, etc.? If so, what are the types one should favor when buying fine press?

EDIT: Ah, this wasn't really a technical question, feel free to skip. ^_^

>2 Aleks3000: >3 DWPress: I wouldn't look for a cylinder press right away. As Chad noted, they're expensive (to acquire and to move), and so it's a big upfront investment. Without significant experience operating them, they're also difficult to maintain and troubleshoot. What do you do if your rollers start to buzz/vibrate while printing? What's the cause? What's the solution? I wouldn't acquire a cylinder press without a traineeship in letterpress or quite a bit of operating experience. Tabletop platen presses are cheaper to acquire, cheaper to move, and while they can't do nearly as much as a cylinder or full size platen press, they're also easily to maintain and troubleshoot. I'd think of owning a cylinder press like owning a 59 Triumph. Wonderful to drive, but a lot of work.

I strongly recommend starting with the bindery side of things. For $1,000 you can have a fully working bindery. Get a stack cutter, a work bench, five bones, an awl, some Ph neutral glue, a book cradle, and a book press. Again, there's a lot of experience which goes into knowing how to troubleshoot and maintain good practice, but you don't have a 2,000 pound mechanical baby on your hands crying while you do it. I actually think every collector with a serious interest in bookmaking should go to an art store, spend $50, and rebind a book themselves. (Recase, really.) There's a lot to learn from rebinding just one book – how difficult keeping things square is, what is grain direction, glue consistency, paper weight benefits and drawbacks in certain situations, etc.

>1 DWPress: My question for you Chad:

I'm operating a Vandercook Universal I with an adjustable bed. I'm using hand-set about half the time and polymer plates on a standard type high base the other half. I use a fairly hard packing and standard tympan which is cut to size for the machine. Because of the adjustable bed, I don't have a ton of reason to change my packing. Jenn, the printer in Portland who I work with most, changes her packing and tympan for every run. This seems excessive to me. I'd much rather just getting printing and not bother, if the prints I'm getting look decent. How often do you replace the tympan on your clyinder press(es)? How often do you repack? Do you have a standard packing which you prefer or do you change per job? Do you cylinder presses have adjustable beds, and if so, does that fact change your thinking when it comes to all of the above?

Another question: I hate color mixing. I've got all the Pantone standards, plus like 100 non-standard premixed colors, and a guide. I know a lot of printers mix by weight, and some just eyeball it. What do you do? Have you found any techniques which make things easier / more consistent / more relaxing / etc? Have to say, color mixing is probably my least favorite part of my job period. (Fun side note: I recently inherited the supply from an old letterpress shop, and got 20 cans of fabulously interesting colors. My favorite: "Dumpster Beige".)

Thanks!

>1 DWPress: And one more question:

I was recently in Trieste, Italy, where I met a lovely antique shop owner named Bruno. In typical Italian fashion, we sat in the back of his overflowing antique shop drinking Lambrusco straight from the bottle and discussing how things were better "Way back when". Because we got along well enough, he gave me a few metal plates when had been cut by a local artist of (at least local) renown. He wrote down the details about the artist and the plates in Italian, which I'll need to translate and research. He hoped I would be able to print from them. The problem is that they're not flat. They've bent slightly in a few ways. Any suggestion? Obviously the material would help here, but I'm not quite sure what it is – frankly, it feels like steel. Definitely not magnesium or copper. I'd like to try to flatten them out, but I'm not sure how without warping the artwork. I'm also worried that they might gouge my rollers. Any suggestions at all in how they might be fixed / who might fix them? Or, is the risk of using them just too high?

>1 DWPress: Oh! And one more question. Super technical here, and apologizing for overstaying my welcome, but:

My Vandercook comes with an automatic wash-up slot. The lever is working, and I have the mechanism which goes inside the slot, but I don't think it's been used in the last decade. I'm sure I can get more information about how it functions from the manual, but I'm wondering if you have any experience with automatic wash-up and whether it's worth bothering. I don't particularly mind doing it by hand, though it takes about 15 minutes. I guess I'm more curious about whether an automatic wash-up would do a better job of it than I do by hand.

Can of worms I've opened. Good!

>4 Shadekeep: There is no one binding to rule them all. It really depends on section count and how many folios are nested, page size, paper weight and a couple other variables. I would say that it is important that the binding properly support the book block to keep it from drooping in the boards - so the fore edge heel does not drag on the shelf in time. Sewing onto tapes or cords secures the block to boards pretty well but if the book is thicker the spine should probably be rounded and backed as well.

The book should open and lie flat! It is first and foremost a vehicle for the information inside and should be fully functional. If the binding is too tight and the boards don't open easily = fail.

A traditional library binding or split board binding is probably the strongest long term solution for a book of physical substance and are preferred for books that are used frequently.

I would avoid any bindings with exposed spine sewings (coptic, Ethiopian) as they are not supportive and are (generally) just a cheap way out for the publisher. Likewise, eastern stab bindings are not suited for a western codex structure. Eastern topic and printed on mulberry or kozo - then fine.

*edited for more info.

>6 grifgon:
Packing is changed as needed. Always a good idea if you're trying to print large solids so that you are not fighting any depressions in the packing. I use mylar when I can as it doesn't compress like tympan.

All Vandercooks come with the cylinder to bed height stamped on the cylinder. Packing is determined by using a micrometer to build up packing + paper to be printed to the correct thickness. AB Vandy's get a lot of abuse because of the convenience but if your block or type is .918 it's better to adjust packing appropriately as that is how the press was designed to be used and will give the best results with rollers to type surface as well.

I mix Pantone colors by weight but use the "part" measurements. Pantone 478 is
6pts Rubine Red
2pts Reflex Blue
8pts Yellow
Make 1 part anything you need - for a small batch maybe ½ gram so the above formula would give you 8 grams of ink total. Make sense?

Pantone colors are for the corporate clients but I do use the formula guide to get me into the ballpark before I start modifications.

If printing transparent colors add some opaque white in along with the mixing white and you'll get better coverage and less splotchy results.

>7 grifgon:
Toss it, there's no way you can bring it back to a perfectly flat plate. I've tried many times to get old plates functional but even on wood bases it's just not possible. Well, it's probably possible but not practical.

The automatic wash-up on some of the newer Vandys is handy. They basically just scrape/squeegee whatever excess ink there might be off the drive cylinder but you've still got to clean everything the way you're doing it now. Additionally then you have to clean the wash-up too or it'll just get caked with solvent and ink and be useless pretty quick.

It can save on solvent and rags potentially. I often start cleaning on cylinders and platens with scrap paper on the ink disc or roller assembly and let it take up the excess ink, then add some solvent and start cleaning.

>10 DWPress: Interesting! I think the previous owner almost exclusively used the adjustable bed rather than adjust packing. I've been a bit reticent to use it, mostly for just different base heights, which it sounds like is what you recommend. Anything you think I should be on the lookout for due to past overuse of the adjustable bed? And good tip on mylar versus tympan!

>11 DWPress: Drats! I thought as much on the plates... Maybe I'll see about hand pressing them just to get a few impressions.

So it sounds like the automatic wash-up is really just for residue, hmm. Not a ton of use then, probably not worth the trouble.

What solvent do you use? And I've seen a lot of printers recommend Easy Street for roller care – any opinion?

Another quick question, I've heard a ton of variance from printers on this one, and interested in your take: How frequently do you change the motor oil in your presses?

>12 grifgon: The AB mechanism can be prone to going out of adjustment, most of the ones in institutions I've used are whacked because of abuse. It can also throw off registration if you change bed level between press runs. Take a roller height gauge and check it everywhere on the bed, there shouldn't be any variation front to back and side to side if it's tuned properly. Still need a tympan for a top sheet on a platen but mylar comes in many thicknesses so stock up on some and cut it for cylinder/platen packing and use it in the same fashion you would paper tympan. For the top drawsheet on your Vandy glue some book cloth to the end that wraps around the tension bar so it can grab easily and you'll have a perfect cylinder packing that's easy to clean if you offset an impression.

>13 grifgon: I use odorless kerosene. All the OSHA approved solvents are useless by comparison. The kerosene also leaves a tiny bit of residual oil on the rollers which is good for them. Never use alcohol or similar, it'll dry out the rubber. I go through less than a pint of solvent a year using the clean up practices I outlined before. I challenge any modern printshop to be as "green" as my antiquated processes are.

My Vandy doesn't take motor oil, I suspect that is a feature of your adjustable bed and would flush it yearly if you use it heavily. I lubricate all my presses with 30 weight motor oil that has no detergents in it which has been the standard for 100+ years. My Little Giant does take oil but since it's mainly lubricating the bed movement on brass rails I can see how clean or dirty it is and change when necessary - probably only 5 times in the past 20 years.

>9 DWPress: Useful and educational, thank you!

>9 DWPress: Very succinct and better stated than I've ever managed! Thank you!