APA Wayzegoose

Sorry, no pics til I get home, but here in Lansing, MI, I'm having a great time hanging with fellow APA members. That's Amalgamated Printers' Association, a group of hobby and other printers.

I'm sometimes not sure how I qualify to hang with such witty and talented folks. It's nice to be able to talk shop, swap stories, and admire other printers' work though. Today we all enjoyed a trip to Owosso Graphic Arts, a company that makes printing plates and commercial dies. Very nice people and an excellent service for printers. They deal with huge businesses and hobby printers alike.

After lunch, we visited a steam train museum whose line has the name of Pere Marquette. What the crossover between letterpress and steam is I can't say, but there is a strong connection. My highlight was riding on a caboose as it was switched from one track to another.

This evening, Joe Warren talked about scoring and die cutting on a platen press. It was a highly useful talk for those of us who have only printed on our presses. Joe showed us examples of scoring matrix, explained the use of a jacket for die cutting, and demystified die cutting with sample dies and their products.

Then Arie Koelwyn gave a talk about using unusual materials to print with. He has used bent rule, children's suncatchers, thin foam cutouts, wood letter cutouts, nature materials, and almost anything flat he can fine, mounted type high, inked, and printed. His printing is always well executed and attractive, so his use of these materials is encouraging.

And that's just the first day of the Wayzegoose. Stay tuned. Tomorrow begins the feeding frenzy: the yard sale in the morning, followed by the auction in the afternoon.

Chase Lifter, Part the Second

Done! And it works. Not bad for a mechanical non-genius. Photo shows the pulley suspended from the "rail rider," with the hooks hanging limply in place. Since I live alone, I don't have a photo of my device in use. Too bad. But here's the photo of the completed device:

To use it: I rest the chase (form) on the left arm of the press, near the counter you can see in the photo. Using one hand to steady it and the other to place the hooks, I engage the hooks under the edge of the chase, in the open areas of the lockup.

To lift the chase, I hold firmly on to the loop (in the photo, it's looped over the counter) with my right hand, and ease the chase into position with my left. Once the chase rests on its ledge, I release the hooks with one hand and engage the chase clamp. (I made the hand loop a more reasonable size after this photo was taken. No danglies.)

The tricky part is when I release the hooks. They want to drop, making the hand loop zoom to the very top of the pulley. With one hand, I have to get one hook end into the hand loop so that the hook ropes form an upside-down Y engaged by the loop. Once the chase clamp is engaged, I can slide the entire lifter assembly back along the rail so it doesn't interfere with the press.

Inspired by Rachel's description of Duane Scott's chase lifter, this is what I came up with. I'm quite happy with it and expect to use it a lot.

Chasing a Dream, err a. . . Chase

Ever since acquiring my 1886 Golding Official (a tabletop 8 x 12!), I've wanted a second chase. They seem even more rare than Pearl chases by the same maker. So I asked Robert to saw me a chase-size piece of plywood.

A chase needs shaping before it can seat in the bed of a press: there are lugs which hold it in place which require corresponding notches in the chase. There is also a spring-loaded clamp to hold the chase securely. The chase edge must be the correct shape for the clamp.

We accomplished shaping a few days ago. I began by trying to match the original chase's lug bevel on all four corners, with rounded-over edge in the center. But the crude tools we were using (belt sander & rasp) weren't up to detail. We ended up with one whole edge beveled and the other one rounded. That's all it really needs-- roundness to match the chase clamp, and a bevel to fit snugly into the lugs. Below is the result:

Right side bevelled to correspond with the lug bevel; left side rounded for clamp.

Bevel matches lug bevel, but it's not an exact science.

Chase fits exactly, with no side play. Rounded top fits clamp. Success!

Next month I will have a chance to put this chase to the test! Needless to say, it will not carry work which I have to lock up too tightly. I'm thinking it will be the perfect thing to hold cuts or second-color infills for jobs locked up in the original chase. Done- is beautiful!

The Big Vandercook Caper

This just in: A larger Vandercook, swapping out the smaller No. 1 for a No. 3. Today, the second stage of my Vandercook move took place. [For those of you waiting to hear about the Wayzegoose, please forgive the diversion. Tomorrow is another day!]

First stage I did not see: Mark Barbour of the International Printing Museum moved my "new" No. 3 from Orange County to the International Printing Museum in LA County, where I worked at cleaning the "back" side-- which I will never see again, now that the press is against the wall of my composing room (aka shed!).

Second stage was today. Mark loaded up the No. 3 and hit the road for Santa Barbara (about 120 miles from the Museum), arriving at my home about 2:00.

First step of the move was to move the little Vandercook No. 1 proof press out to the driveway. Bye-bye, little Vandy! Mark and the pallet jack rolled little Vandy over 4x8 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood alongside my garage to the asphalt driveway, then down to the trailer.


Then, the big job: jacking up the big No. 3 and rolling it along the same route: down the driveway to the garage, turn left, turn right, and down the plywood road back to the composing room. A bit of an extra push/pull, and No. 3 was inside, where Mark manipulated the pallet jack perfectly and got No. 3 placed. Hello, big Vandercook!

A few more photos are at http://tinyurl.com/yc54kh5. All that's left to do is to clean her "near" side and re-attach the feed board. Then let 'er roll!

Moving right along, Summer's over already!

I didn't expect to become this far behind in posting, but it has been a busy and productive summer. June saw not only the miniature book workshop but the cat shelter work and my young cousin's graduation from Cal Poly (go, Kristina!), which was a thrill. In July I began planning my trip to the APA Wayzegoose in Iowa in mid-September. This involved printing for two keepsake bundles (Ladies of Letterpress did an Old Maid deck, and Paul Moxon organized a 100th anniversary Vandercook bundle).

My dreaded-but-ordinary birthday came and went. One of those "ending in 0" birthdays, but nothing happened! Not only did the sky not fall, neither did I. The most that happened was that a dear friend shanghai'd me to a nail parlour and I got the "Spa" toenail/foot massage treatment. What fun! Then we drove to Lompoc for a Proper Tea, allowing my Alien Feet to follow me there. And a good time was had by all, including the feet.

I also went to inspect a Vandercook printing press. It's about twice as big as the one currently in the Composing Room. I don't know why, but I decided to adopt the bigger one and sell the littler one. I measured carefully and I *do* have room. In a manner of speaking.

Today I went into the Composing Room (aka "shed") and cleaned it out in preparation for the Big move-in. Tomorrow morning my contractor's "guys" will place the type cabinet seen way in the back (empty) on top of the cabinet in the front/right of the photo. Then, I will add the mountain of typecases seen on the left of the photo. It'll be all ready for the Big Vandercook Exchange at 1 PM. You can see the "little" Vandercook on the right. Its replacement will be much larger!

I'll write about the Wayzegoose in the next edition. It deserves its own entry.