Hi, I print calligraphy a lot these days. And what I have found (and after talking to Boxcar about it as well) is, you want the calligrapher to send the artwork to you as a 600dpi bitmap tiff file (you can do this in Photoshop). Bitmap will make the file just black and white pixels so Boxcar can make a plate from that. 600 dpi will help it not be…[Read more]

I can take another month if needed – I would love November along with June that you gave me before.Let me know. As well do I have to pay you now or when I send you the submissions. Thanks.

Kristina,  did you ever figure this out?  I printed my sister-in-law’s wedding invitations a few years ago and the map was hand drawn and she wrote everything out in her own handwriting.  I had to scan it, bring it into Photoshop and clean it up there before bringing it into Illustrator.  It was a LOT of work, but it came out great–you can see…[Read more]

Thanks Angela.

KimberlyThat’s okay I think I have someone take them over! No worries, sorry to here its not going so well!Angela

Angela: I was going through a move that has turned for the worse and will most likely end with our stuff going to storage so that means I will most likely have to bow out of the calendar swap. I am so sorry but we’re struggling right now and it doesn’t look like this will end well and so I just want to let you know now with time enough for you to…[Read more]

Hi Stephanie,Did you ever get your press moved? What size is your Jones Gordon press? I couldn’t imagine someone doing it by themselves. Please let me know how the move went and also, if you have any sources for parts for this press.Thank you,Maria Ayala

Oh thanks so much Sandra! This is not an easy sport! Lol I have such an ego, I just thought I would be printing stuff already! After two suggestions to call box car I believe I will do that. I will have to find a few other things like the furniture and the gauge pins and the tympan paper and red board. Can you recommend a good book for a beginner…[Read more]

Tympan paper is the (usually yellow) paper on which you place your gauge pins to hold the paper for printing.  Tympan paper is the top layer of your backing (usually redboard).  You can adjust the depth of your (redboard) backing to ensure uniform printing pressure. Boxcar bases allow the use of photopolymer plates, which come with their own adhes…[Read more]

Thanks Rachel, I will do that!   

I wondered about that too!

Hi Jen,I am interested in your baby oil method. I had heard of using Crisco but not baby oil. I had heard that Crisco is really good at getting the ink off the rollers and keeping them from drying out between print runs, but is not good to have on your rollers when you are first putting ink on the press (they use mineral spirits for the quick…[Read more]

Yes if you are doing 1 month we need 36 of them so we can make 3 full calenders for each participant month.

So, make 36 of each month, right?

Have you tried electrolytic rust removal?  I tried this on a few C&P parts and it works wonders.  Just google it and there are a plethora of instructional sites/youtube videos/discussions. I hope that’s helpful!