For the Win!

It's November. No kidding.

Once again, for the fourth November in a row, I have participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and WON.

Despite the hazards of the game -- duties, company, errands, other projects, and journeys-- I stuck to it and produced wordage. 50,000 more than I would have written without the spur of this annual event.

This year it is more of an accomplishment. I bogged down in the middle of a sequel, and switched to my historical novel of last year. I tacked that on to the document already underway and kept writing. Net effect is 50,000 words, but they are destined to be edited into two other novels. I struggled with each story line, but by judicious application of buns to chair and fingers to keys, I finished.

Whew.

Now I can enjoy the coming season. There are no classes to distract me, and I won't be editing my novel until after Christmas. I'm working on getting my press (the C&P this time) repaired, ordering the wood parts for my dad's Model T, and catching up on sewing projects.

Guess I'd better print some Christmas cards too. This year, on the Vandercook!

Toolbox again

Just an excuse to post. My inking woes are solved. The rollers needed to be adjusted downward. That done, and inking was perfect. Before the adjustement, I had completed Tool #2 in the set, but there's no pic.

Tool #3 is half done! Color one went on press today, and I'm excited about the inking now. This tool, and its associated cut, is one of my favorites, because I use it every time I print.

Color two will be red: a smaller composing stick showing type lined up in it, and a drop cap H for the legend in Washington Text. Click to biggify-- I'm quite happy with it!

The height of irony: a problem with the camera's parallax makes the printing look UN straight!

Toolbox

Here is the first of my tool contributions for the Toolbox. The uneven look of the type is its rugged design: Pabst Oldstyle. Kids' art foam sheet mounted on a mag base printed the saw. Apologies that the cell phone shot doesn't display the Lettra paper effect.

Inking Issues

This post is mostly for friends from Letpress, the letterpress printers' listserv.

If you look carefully at the pic (double-click to biggify), you can see the areas which are not inking.

The last letter, s, in Pins, and the thimble at the bottom of the cut are simply not taking ink. The sad part is that they were inking perfectly all during makeready, and now they are simply not. At All.

As far as I can see, there was no contamination, no washup between makeready and printing, and no color change. I didn't even change packing.

Pressure is a little heavy; the cut sits a wee bit high, and I have had to add a sheet of typman under the type to bring it up, since I cannot remove anything from the cut.

I would love to get your thoughts on why this is happening when the proofs were all so good.

Run One

I've been slowly working up to using my new-to-me proof press. After cleaning and oiling it thoroughly, the first impression I tried was a bust. I was new to this style proof press so I was in no hurry. Ordered new rollers, had a problem reinstalling them, and it took another year to get things together. More lag time. After all, my C&P platen does a fine job. While waiting, the Vandercook bed became the site of some Horizontal Surface Disease in the form of two type cases and assorted printers tools.

This week I cleared off the bed, and yesterday inked up to proof a large cut. Despite new rollers, I had no impression! What to do-- then I remembered I have no bed plate for this press. A galley fixed that problem, but I still had only a ghost of an impression. For a workaround I laid two sheets of tympan paper under the galley. Perfect!

Last night I finally got a decent print from my Vandercook No. 3. The Colt is not printed with "bite" impression, but he shows up clearly and the type is crisp. Now it's time to place the tympan paper in the packing rather than under the galley and have fun.

Yes. The ink is burgundy.

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.