Catching Up

Its such a long time since I posted to this blog. The small Albion is in regular use for day to day printing from engraving blocks. I have made some small improvements which I will highlight soon. In the meantime, I made a short "peepshow" style video of the printing of a bookplate.

Notes

1. I am using lots of layers of very thin ink to get the result I want with this block.
2. I use sections cut from clear plastic folders to hold the paper during printing.

Now... on with the video

A Bigger Press

My new Albion arrives on Monday. I am buying this unseen, though I have received a photo of part of it:



This is much bigger than my current Albion and the idea is that I can not only edition current large blocks but also plan larger images for the future.

This has all set a flurry of activity; I need to clear space in the studio and also find the money to fund this purchase; thesepresses are not cheap! I will continue to work on the money tomorrow but the current task is to dis-assemble the Arab press to point that it will get through the door. This Herculean task continues tomorrow.

October 2005

Here are some photos of the press as it stands at the end of October 2005. It is working well but still needs a little work.

Here is the press as it stands at the end of October 2005, nearly a year after receiving it. The tympan works, but needs a new cover - and there is a bright new counterweight. 

Here is another view of the repaired hinge bar. 

Here you can see the new counterweight and the bar that fixes the tympan to the bed 

Here is the new metal counterweight. I have decided to keep the bright metal, rather than paint it. 

More Parts Arrive

After a brief exchange of emails, I met up with Jeremy again and received two more parts. The first of these was the repaired bar that fixes to the front of the bed and receives the tympan. The second was a beautiful hand-turned metal counterweight that fixes onto the tympan. These arrived in time to print some of the proofs from the larger blocks of theShakespeare illustrations I have been engraving for Barbarian Press. Everything worked like a dream. I definately need to recover the tympan but things are working well.

I am only short of the drop handle now. I will pass the details to J who thinks he can "fettle something". Firstly, I need to get another batch of work on eBay to finish paying for these latest pieces and to save for the handle.

Periodic Welcome

This is just a regular note that I will post to remind new readers to read from the bottom to the top.

July 2005

The press is working well at the moment, despite the fact that I still need several parts:

Repaired hinge at the front of the bed.
Counterweight for the tympan
Drop handle.

The first has been done and the second needs to be finished before they are both sent. The third is more of a problem and I am considering having one cast from an existing handle.

This hasn't stopped me from using the press. The bed is light enough to be pulled in and out by hand. There have been one or two concerns. A squeak developed recently but a spot of oil seems to have smoothed that out. I am more concerned that the handle is a little loose and so I am going to stop trying to print larger blocks that need great pressure. The trouble is that the Arab press is waiting for a repair and so I am going to go out and borrow a larger handpress to edition bigger works. Deep down inside, I know that I need to replace the Arab with a larger Albion!

I am starting to sort through the type I have accumulated over the years. This was my first attempt at letterpress on the Albion, following a weekend with Claire Bolton at the Alembic Press, near Oxford. 

Here is a better view of the bed with everything in place. This is more or less the position that I am in now in Juyl 2005. 

I am still waiting for the hinge that accepts the tympan to be repaired and returned. In the meantime, I am using hinged card as a temporary tympan. Iain Bain used this method when printing from William Blake's original engraved blocks. I find that it works well and may keep using it for small blocks, even when the press is repaired. 

One of the very positive aspects of the new workspace is that I can engrave right next to the press, making it very easy to stop and take a proof. 

I fixed a strip of wood to the front and back of the bed and used quoins to secure a chase. I will mostly use the press to print wood engravings from relatively small blocks and so I nested a smaller Harrild chase inside the larger ones. 

I spent many hours of December 2004 and January 2005 converting part of a large garage building into a pressroom/studio. At last I could work in light and comfort. My local blacksmith repaired one of the cornerpieces at the front of the bed and I worked out how to fix a chase in place. 

Further work, and then a couple of coats of paint, worked wonders. The press was starting to be transformed.

Even the coat of arms started to reveal it secrets. 

I continued to work on the surface, revealing a suprising array of colours.  

The surface of the metal was already pitted with rust but the surface started to respond to the effort. With paint flaking off all the time, I knew that I had to carry on.