Peter and Donna Thomas in Santa Cruz also make their own paper for letterpress printing. They sometimes host papermaking classes too!
Peter ends his classes with a cute ukelele concert, well worth the price of admission alone to hear him strum and sing about tiny type.
You can also double-ink the press if the quantity you’re printing isn’t too high.
Good to note the addition of silver; I’ve letterpress printed PMS 877 Silver by first printing in opaque white, then doing a second pass with the silver ink. The opaque white seals the sheet and acts as a good primer for the silver to really stand out. Note that this is on a Windmill, where registration is precise; I’m not sure I would recommend this route for most other presses where registration is more difficult.
Lars.
I second the French Paper recommendation — they have great colors to choose from, which is nice if your client’s after something beyond white. All of the French papers are smoother than Lettra and have a hard finish.
Mohawk makes several beautiful 110 lb. papers — Superfine is a favorite for clients who want something smoother than Lettra; the Carnival line offers many rich colors with textures like Hopsack, Felt and Cordwain. Mohawk’s Loop family also has colors that are similar to French’s Muscletone and Durotone lines.
Otherwise, Strathmore Writing Cover Bristol Wove 110 lb. cover has a little more texture (wove finish) and is a stiffer sheet. It’s also one of our most popular non-Lettra business card options.
Good luck, and have fun!
Lars.
Hi Ondine!
I always print on oversize press sheets when bleeds are involved, and trim down to final afterward. Allow an 1/8″ bleed and print with crop marks (offset the crop marks to avoid entering the live art area). This is standard practice in print.
HTH,
Lars.
Sorry to chime in a bit late here…
We offset Lettra 110 lb. frequently, often in combination with letterpress on one or both sides. The old Lettra formulation (before the line was bought out and reformulated) was difficult for offset — we had to clean the press blankets every 50 sheets due to linting. Now the paper’s changed significantly enough that we can do short runs without a hitch with fewer blanket washes. Lettra 220 lb. is too thick to wrap around the cylinders and can ruin a press blanket.
Lars.
Ditto to the two replies above (disengage the finger that rotates the disc) + add transparent base in between the two colors. This helps extend the hue of the original colors and prevents them from mixing too quickly.
On some presses there are little separators that you can add to help prevent the colors from mixing as well — see the attached photo of a split fountain (with transparent base in between colors), on our Heidelberg KS cylinder letterpress.
Lars.
We produce and use all three plate types here (KF95, KF152, and KM152). I prefer the KF95 (standard relief Boxcar-style plate) for the Heidelberg Windmill because it’s easiest to use, and I really like the gridded Boxcar bases. It makes positioning a snap. Plus, I don’t have to worry about plates shifting during a press run or curling when being removed from the base after printing (which can happen with steel back plates).
For older letterpresses (such as C&Ps) which have worn rails and form rollers, deep relief plates are better (KF152). They require a deep relief Boxcar base. Many of our C&P clients love the KF152 plates.
We’ve done tests with clients where we plate the same file on all the different plate material types. Feedback seems that print quality is the same, but each client has his or her own preference, often preferring the first plate material type they learned to use.
Hope this helps!
Lars.
Not sure if this is too late, but you might want to contact the Hicks Brothers. We also have a Universal III and they fixed it up and moved it into our shop… they are the moving experts! (415) 575-0933.
Lars.
We use Quickbooks Pro. You can create (and email for paperless transactions): estimates, invoices, statements, enter vendor bills as well as accept payments from clients. Whips up income and expense reports in seconds, which is nice too.
We use the QB integrated credit card processing. It’s pricey though, and Amex costs extra.
I mix onto coated cover paper, leftover from an offset print run. I zero out the triple beam scale each time I mix ink, with the paper sitting on the left side of the scale. There’s no clean up needed after 🙂
Hi Dark Stamper,
There are a coupla ways to look at it:
– You can simply move the base up a few picas to avoid the gauge pins on your press.
– You can also contact a local machinist and have them make a simple smaller base for you out of aluminum. We’ve done this for our large Heidelberg KS cylinder press, which takes a much larger base size than Boxcar carries.
I also use a triple-beam balance scale, and use the gram measurements offered on the right side of each swatch in the Pantone Solid Uncoated swatchbook.
Here’s a little conversion guide I use when mixing ink; I convert ounces to grams for the most accuracy:
How does this work, you ask? Say you want to mix 1/4 oz (or 7.145 g) of Pantone 151 U (orange). Here are the color components, taken from the Pantone Solid Uncoated guide:
First, you take the gram measurements and move the decimal point two places to the left (.75 and .25, respectively).
Then, multiply each value by the total amount of ink needed (7.145):
A good way to double-check your math is to add the gram components up, they should add up to 7.145:5.359 + 1.786 = 7.145 g
Hope you find this handy!
Lars.
As far as I can tell, Lettra is not a laser-certified sheet. Certain papers are, and are marked as such, (namely text-weight papers used for letterhead/correspondence). Have tried laser printing Lettra a number of times with no success; but we have inkjet printed Lettra 110 lb. just fine through our Epson Stylus Pro 4000 with great results.
There are some extraordinary inkjet papers on the market, such as Moab Entrada (sold at Calumet), which has a special surface treatment to take inkjet beautifully. We’ve inkjet printed wedding invitations on the Entrada for heavy/full color coverage, and then letterpress printed the type… a sweet combo! It’s expensive, as the pigmented inks (K2 cartridges) are pricey. Will post a photo example soon.
Lars.
Hi Pilar,Metallic inks are always oil-based, and it’s necessary to overprint using oil-based inks (nor rubber). Rubber-based inks also dry by absorption — not oxidation like oil-based inks — so the two don’t play together well. If you remember this in your next run you should be good to go!Lars.
