This weekend, Kacey, Em and I took a look at a handful of presses for sale. This is one of them. An old style C&P. Although it’s quite dirty and will need some restoration work, it seems to be in good shape structurally. We have a bit more research + thinking to do before we determine if this is the right press for us. It would definitely be a large jump from our little Pearl but that’s what we’re searching for.
Let’s see. Where were we on our Pearl restoration journey? Oh yes. Back at the end of July, our new rollers had come in. Since then, we’ve found an original crank and found someone to fabricate the connecting rod. Those are the final pieces in converting our press from a motor operated press to one that’s powered by our foot. All that’s left for us to do is create feeder boards. We have the wood + stain. Now to find the time!
PS – The picture above was taken several months back when we were priming all of the press parts a nice ketchup color.
The new rollers for our second Pearl came in! We’re one step closer to getting it up and running. We’ve got two parts to get fabricated so that we can convert it from a motorized press to a pedal-operated one and feeder boards to make. That’s it!
We’re on the hunt for new lighting for our office + studio. What we have now is definitely not bright enough, especially since we do so much printing at night. We need something that will provide lots of light – either with multiple bulbs or have a clear cover. I’d also really like a fixture with a vintage + industrial look, too. Here are a few that have caught my eye.
A little peek at a letterpress gift set I sent out to a dear friend of mine. She’s getting married. So, I thought customized stationery with her new married name would be perfect.
PS – Have you been enjoying this new series? I hope so. I am.
Today in the studio… mixing up a pretty, custom, metallic ink + inking up the press. We used this color on that beautiful Italian paper along with another ink color we printed up yesterday.
A couple of shots I captured today of things going on in the studio. One, this big plate ready to be broken up and printed. I should have photographed it with something familiar so you could get a better idea of its scale. It’s quite massive. And, two, this beautiful pink Italian paper with a lovely deckled edge. Today, we printed little invites on it. I can’t wait to show you the finished piece.
Hope your Fat Tuesday was a happy one!
You can file this under gross. It’s years and years worth of ink and grime on our newly acquired Pearl press. After doing a bit of cleaning, we’ve discovered there’s much more work to do than we initially thought. Our first plans of just using a degreaser fell apart once we realized the gunk wasn’t budging. Now, we’re using a paint stripper.
The picture above is layers of ink + grime on the backside of the platen, and the picture below is the buildup on the chase holder.
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