Printers, Printing

Helping the Guild with the Book Arts Jam in Palo Alto netted me some nice cuts (mounted printing plates) of printers doing their jobs. I print bookplates for our collaborative book each year, and these will give me some nice design elements for several more years.

To see these well, you have to double-click on them to biggify!

A King who prints? Is he the King of 

Hearts, Spades, or --?

Two different eras of printing. Renaissance and Revolution. 

Both in great condition.

TYPE. . . and a slightly off-scale composing stick crossed with a sort of type.

Another pair of printers and a common press, a tiny printer in an interesting frame, and a small barrel which has nothing to do with printing.

Sorry for this being out-of-focus!

Printer on the left running a New Style platen press; comic printer on the right holding ink balls.

 And the surprise-- a cast type metal, two-color image of two printers: One inking the press in the foreground, and the other at the case in the background.

Finally, a 19th century printer standing at the case. Great design. This one may be my favorite, but all will do nicely for our bookplate page.

The best part is that the seller was letting these go very cheaply, just to find them a good home. I bought them and several other nice ornaments with some paper. They will all be used and appreciated!

More Typographic Excess

The Los Angeles Printers' Faire was last Saturday, and of course, having more guts than brains, I committed typographic excess again. I couldn't help myself. John Barrett of Letterpress Things brought treasure.

My first purchase in the morning was the wrapped font, below. It is, I believe, the 2nd most common font used on late Victorian calling (social) cards. I haven't identified either of the others, but they are below for your pleasure. Double click to see them in all their glory.

Somebody titled this, but it isn't correct! Johnson Foundry.

Now id'd as Text Ornate thanks to Steve Saxe.

 

I purchased the second and third at the end of the day, 

when I knew I had some cash left over! Purty swashes 

and ringlets in the second; which a friend just id'd as 

Renaissant (Dickinson Foundry, 1879!). And just look 

at the extravagant serifs on the third. Although it has 

a Berhnard Bros & Spindler pinmark, I could not 

find it in their 1907 catalog- the only one I have.

Diagnosed! C&P Roller issues

Now we know. My friend Dave was visiting and we ran the C&P rollers up and down to see if we could determine the source of the right side roller's odd behavior. On its travel north from the rails to the ink disk, it was rising alarmingly while jumping around-- not expected behavior to say the least.

It turns out that the roller saddles on both sides are worn. This isn't a surprise for a platen press, but the right side saddles are worn more than the left. One has wear in an eccentric pattern and the other is worn too wide. A problem with roller size compounds the issue and the rollers actually touch each other on that side as they rise. When they do, the lower roller jumps off the ink disk and shimmys around.

 

Even though the left side saddle is closer in this shot, you

can still see the abnormal wear on the right side saddle

across the ink disk, behind it. It's much thinner.

 The saddles should always hold the rollers parallel to one another, as here.

 In this shot, the rollers are traveling up the disk and are touching on the right side!

Friction damage to the lower roller in the dual saddle.

After all this, my next project is to either find replacement roller saddles or have some made. I can only hope for a parts press to pop up. Having them made will be expensive. Poor C&P. I'm already missing her.