Last October I was printing some “Save the Date” cards for a customer, and decided to take a video of the work.
It only too me 8 months to edit the clips into a single video, but, after much delay, here is the result.
I’m using our 7×11 Chandler & Price Old Style press, fitted with composition ink rollers, to print cocoa brown oil-based ink onto 5×7 handmade sheets. The paper is mostly abaca pulp with a bit of cotton, and some chive flowers for decoration.
The deckle edges of the paper make for slow placement of the sheet against the gauge pins; you can’t just drop it against the two bottom pins and slide it until it hits the side pin because the deckle edge will not slide against the pins well. As a result I’m running the press very slow, maybe 600 impressions per hour. I hadn’t run the press for a while and it took me some time to get my rhythm on the treadle to avoid stalling with the treadle down while loading the sheet. When this happens I have to give the flywheel a push to get things moving again.
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