Since the width and height are nearly the same, 4 pica wide furniture will usually have a groove cut down the top side signifying which side faces up. This means the smallest piece of furniture available is 2×10 picas, and the largest commonly available is 10×60 picas.įurniture is commonly stored in a wedge-shaped cabinet, housing 5 or 6 pieces per size, short at the top, long at the bottom, and narrow on the left to wide on the right.
LETTERPRESS SUPPLIERS SERIES
Furniture is absolutely necessary for every letterpress shop, and the more complete your set, the more versatile you will be.Ĭut to be shorter than type high, furniture comes in a standard series of lengths and widths. Furniture and Regletsįurniture is the wooden (or occasionally metal or resin-composite) blocks that surround your form or plate base to hold it in place. An alternative guide can be made using paper, cardboard, or sticky foam. This usually breaks the pin or guide too. Take care when aligning your guides: a misplaced guide will easily crush type, a polymer plate, or damage a base. Higher-quality guides lock into the press on both ends with a lever system and are called Quad Guides (and are sold under the brand name Kort Adjustable Quad Guides). These come in a variety of specific styles but are all essentially the same. Megill pins include a sharp end that punctures your tympan, and a brass tongue and square end which holds the sheet. Today they are still made and sold the gauges have not changed over the years. These patented gauge pins were in general use over 100 years ago. Soon more elaborate devices were made, culminating with several varieties of gauges that clamped to the tympan paper, made by the Edward L. On the nineteenth century platen press, this function was filled at first by bent pins inserted into the tympan, or quads pasted on the tympan, to which the sheet of paper was fed. The point-holes on incunabula leaves can be useful bibliographical indicators. On the hand press, the function of keeping the paper in register was supplied by “points” on the tympan, which pierced the dampened paper easily and kept it from shifting. One of the most remarkable devices of all is the simple gauge pin. Simple Green or Windex (or another all-purpose cleaner).Nitrile Gloves (definitely Nitrile more on that later).The BasicsĪny good art studio will have a variety of everyday tools that keep their studio running smoothly, and a print shop is no different.
Most are applicable to both traditional and photopolymer letterpress printing setups. Some tools are “ compositor’s tools,” useful for the person printing with handset wood and metal type. While no one can deny that the printing press is at the heart of every print shop, there are a multitude of print shop tools and supplies that are either incredibly helpful or downright necessary to a functioning shop.
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