There is a good video from Crane: Hand-bordering Stationery at Crane & Co.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bClJvo4jro

I like Henry Compressible Gage pin from NA Graphics. They are designed to be used with photopolymer plates. Before I discovered them, I made my own using 3M Double Sided Foam Tape and a section of transparency sheet.

I have used a ?Sonic Wave Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner Cleaning Machine CD-2800? to clean type.  I was hoping it would just wash the type but it took too many runs through the machine to clean and most of my type really needed a degreaser to remove all the grime.  So I added the follow steps and had fabulous success. 

1. Soak the type in Simple green or Super clean for 10 minutes.  I found super clean worked better but simple green still works fine.
2. Take each piece out and run a soft tooth brush over.
3. Load in the ultrasonic basket; pour some clean water over.
4. Ran each batch twice through the ultrasonic cleaner.  Dumping the water between the first run and the second but not between batches. 
5. Take out type and put on a towel to pat dry; some pieces may need to go through the cleaner again.
6. Then place type (no pieces touching) on a cheap pizza aluminum cooking sheet covered in paper towels with a heating pad underneath on high to dry. 

Drying is really important and the cookies sheet idea was from someone on briar press and it worked great.   Now you are asking yourself why use the ultrasonic cleaner if you are washing each piece.  Because it removes the smaller stuff in the grooves and rinses the cleaner off the type.  Maybe if my type was just dusty I wouldn’t have had to add the additional steps.

cheers, Cindi

My black rubber ink is very tacky and I use Gans Rubber Base Reducer. it works great.   I think VanSon also sells a version.

 

cheers, cindi

If you have too much ink on your press one of the tricks to remove ink is too put a piece of paper on the disc and run the roller over it.  I use this technique at the end of a run to get as much ink off as possible before cleaning to minimize chemicals.  I use paper from the recycle bin at work which once the ink has dried it can still be recycled.   Once I have removed most of the ink with the paper, I take a rag (usually the one I used to wipe off the type) and wipe the disc down.  I then clean the disc with a rag with a little California wash.  It doesn?t take much be most of the ink have been removed by the paper.  The rollers I take off one at a time and run them again across a clean piece of paper then put them spanning a shoe box lid that I notched four Vs on the edge to hold the roller (I was going to have my husband make a wood version but it works so well I haven?t bothered), then run a rag with a little California wash over them.  I store the rollers on the shoe box lid because I oil the press before every session.  I have used other cleaners but like California Wash the best for the Gans rubber ink and NA Graphics Oil-based ink that I use.

[Author]

Posts