My First Printing

Well, you've got to start somewhere. As poor as the printing here is, at least it exists - I've actually printed something on my own press with my own type in my own shop. Clearly I've got a lot of learning to do, but I can at least nominally call myself a printer now. 2009-10-22

Here's the overall setup. The press is a Chandler and Price Galley Proof Press (in my pedantic way, I think of it more specifically as a "Free-Roller Galley Proof Press") acquired last January from Jim Doletzky. As you can see, the shop is crowded. The galley racks on the left are from the Lynn Card Company (acquired with Linotype Models 5 and 29). To the lower left of the photograph you can just see the Delivery Board of the Chandler & Price 10x15 (New Series). Four feet to the right (not visible in the photo) is a Linotype/Intertype Model X, which isn't quite operational yet. On the bench beyond the press you can see the tray and art-supply-store brayer that I used for inking. This is rubber-based ink from Fritz Klinke's NA Graphics

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The setup shown here will look very strange to an experienced printer. What's a chase doing in a galley, after all? Well, this particular press is a "galley proof press," meaning that it is designed to take proofs of type while the type is held in a galley (so the height from the bed to the bottom of the roller is sufficient for the type plus the galley thickness). Such a press can be used without a galley - you just put down a piece of sheetmetal of equivalent thickness. See Cleeton et. al.General Printing (3rd ed., 1963, p. 41) for an illustration of the use of a Galley Substitute Plate. You would then either use a chase designed for the press (for example, the press owned by Martin Rauchwerk (in PA) and shown on the Excelsior Press website http://excelsiorpress.org/available/martin.rauchwerk/index.html/ has such a chase) or lock up the form against the sides of the press bed.

Of course, I don't yet have a galley substitute plate for this press. And in all of my odd bits of metal lying around, nothing would do. And it's 30 miles to the nearest hardware store (the only disadvantage of my location). And it's after hours anyway.

So I used a galley, and found a chase to fit. Because I've sort of accidentally started to collect vulcanizers, I happened to have a chase designed for a small vulcanizer which fit nicely. I just unscrewed the handle (didn't even have to do that, really). It's 0.875 inches high, which is a bit on the high side, but ok.

Once I make a galley substitute plate for this press, I'll be able to use the chases from my C&P 10x15, which fit. Very convenient.

So here's a chase with a form locked up in it, sitting inside a galley, on the press. Alongside is the proof taken from it. This is just ordinary bond paper as used for computer printers and typing (remember typewriters?) Real printers would be appalled at this, because this paper is entirely unsuitable for fine printing. On the other hand, it was available, it's cheap, I'm just practising, and it works. Think of it as one less sheet of fine paper wasted.

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Here's the chase and form. It just barely fits. Note also the rust on the metal furniture; I will derust it. The chase has some light surface rust too; ditto. The quoins are the smaller size of Challenge high-speed quoins; even at that they barely fit. There are many infelicities in this lockup. For example, I should have used reglet around the upper quoin and to the right of the right one (or used wooden furniture). The lockup style is the "chaser" method (See Cleeton, pp 70-71), whereby each piece of furniture surrounding the form is free to slide to its left under pressure. Such a lockup cannot bind.

I set this flush left because it was easy. Ideally, I'd have letterspaced it.

The type is 60 point in a face that is basically Futura. (I think that it is probably ATF Spartan Heavy.) This type was given to me by Rachel Scott, with other old beat-up type suitable (to a fine printer) only for the remelt pot. It isn't in perfect shape, to be sure, but I think there's still some life in it.

I chose 60pt because I wanted to start out with big, strong type in case the bed-to-roller distance was insufficient. As it was, I think that my galley is in fact a bit too thick for this particular press and the felt blanket covering its roller. This doesn't bother 60pt type, but I'll be refining this before I start printing small delicate type in it.

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Here's the end result. Is it not obvious that the first thing that one should print is one's spouse's name?

There are of course some defects in the type visible here (the nick in the upper 'N' is particularly obvious), but the more important flaws are in the presswork. The inking, in particular, is insufficiently uniform (compare the lower right 'LL' to the rest, for example).

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But it is real printing. Hooray!

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