Back in Business

 

My alternate title could be "it works!" I know my blogging time-line isn't matching up to real life very well right now, and hopefully I'll blog myself into the present fairly soon, but today I'm going to jump a couple weeks back from the real present and three weeks forward from the blogging present. Confused?

So I brought the press home in mid-March and then spent two or three weeks cleaning and reorganizing my shop area and the press itself. The press still had some rust on it that I needed to get off and I was having endless trouble with the roller hooks and springs. I'll talk about all that plus setting the platen and roller height in upcoming posts, but I just wanted to shout from the rooftops how pleased I am that the new press and the honeycomb base both work!

 Yes, I finally printed something on the new (to me) 6x10 Kelsey Excelsior. It went so very well, and those two weeks of messing around with various bits and pieces of the press really paid off. I basically popped in my plate and printed perfectly right off the bat. No makeready, the packing was perfect already, I added just the right amount of ink - it was like a dream. Some of you know how rare that can be in printing, and I have to say that I really needed it. After those wedding invitations that were such a challenge that I personally still can't look at them objectively, and then all the futzing I had to do to get the rollers to work properly on the 6x10, and the complete lack of any printing for weeks, it was heartening and a bit of an ego boost to have this first small project run so smoothly.

Not only was this my first time using the Kelsey 6x10, it was also my first use of the honeycomb base, and it also went well, with just a few minor issues. I bought the honeycomb base for super cheap on EBay about 8 months ago, but I hadn't ever used it. This is because Owosso gives first time customers a free plate, either copper or magnesium. Since copper is longer lasting but also so much more expensive than magnesium, I thought I'd get the business card that my sister designed made into a copper plate, and that would be my free plate.

Now as I said, the base and toggle hooks cost very little, so I went ahead and bought them even though I really didn't know anything about how this system is supposed to work or how to lock it up. It was so cheap that it was worth the money to give it a shot even if it didn't work and I eventually had to spend the big bucks for a polymer base system or the new honeycomb bases that NA Graphics sell. My design was finalized around Christmas and when I finally went to Owosso's website, I realized that copper plates are not offered in the height that my base needs. Owosso offers 16 gauge (.064") or ¼ inch (.250") plates in copper and neither of those sounded right. After a little more research and measuring I learned that many bases are .668" for mounting the ¼ inch, .250" plates, whereas mine is .759" and takes 11 point plates. 11 point plates are only made (for letterpress) in magnesium. This kind of worried me and I was concerned that maybe my plate depth wasn't as good as the thinner one. (As an aside, I later found out that Joie Studio uses a honeycomb base the same depth as mine, so that was reassuring). I actually looked into getting the plate machined down, but it turned out that grinding it down would be better and either way it would cost more than $200, making it equally as expensive as a new plate system. Anyway all that dithering took a while but I finally decided that I might as well take advantage of the free plate offer and give my base a try - if it didn't work I'd only be out shipping costs. So I sent in my Illustrator file with instructions to cut the plate into three separate plates (all for free! Thank you Owosso customer service!) and bevel the edges (so as to attach the hooks to the base).

The plate arrived but my troubles were not yet over, oh no. In the above picture, you can see my honeycomb base, which is actually 2 pieces that fit together into a rectangle (in the picture at the top of this post, you can see the base locked into a rectangle in the chase). You can also see the toggle hooks and key that came with the base. Yeah, those didn't work. I couldn't get two of my three plates to lock up tightly enough and the one that was tight only locked up with strategic placement of the plate against the holes. This was a couple days before I went to John Barrett's to pick up the Kelsey, so I just took everything along with me to get his instruction. It turns out that there are two main kinds of bases, Blatchford and Sterling, and three sizes of holes between them, 5/16", 7/16", and 1/2". My plate is a Sterling plate with 7/16" holes, but my toggle hooks were for a Blatchford base with 5/16" holes. At least the problem was explained, but John only had a couple of the toggle hooks I needed and didn't want to sell them to me since he quite obviously needs the few he has for demonstrations to neophytes like me.

I'm really not sure why there is so little information on honeycomb bases out there (by which I mean the internet; I didn't actually do real book research or anything). If anyone knows of good sources for instruction or history, please let me know and I'll post links or summaries. So I contacted Fritz at NA Graphics, but it seems that the Sterling bases and hooks he sells use the half inch system. Then I contacted Dave Churchman and Don Black (well Craig Black - I believe Don is in Florida). I was able to get a few from Craig Black in four of the six widths. In the above picture and on NA Graphics, you can see that the toggle hooks come in different widths or thicknesses so that you can attach the plate to the base depending on the space left between the plate and the edge of the hole. From him I got a 00, a 0, two 1s, and a 2. I can attach most everything with these, but I didn't want a couple more in each size for greater flexibility and the 1s and 0s are the ones I use most. 

 

I printed the business cards using the ones from Canada, but I bought a few more from Dave Churchman when I was in Indianapolis this weekend. I always seem to do things the difficult way and this size Sterling base is right in keeping with that. Dave has boxes of Blatchford bases in different sizes and multiple coffee cans full of the 5/16" toggle hooks that go with them, but only an envelope full of the Sterling 7/16" toggle hooks. I bought a few, and I think I can now lock up pretty much anything, but I didn't want to be greedy and buy lots of the hooks because I'm sure there are a few other people needing some too. However, if you are looking into purchasing a used base system, may I recommend the Blatchford base with 5/16" toggle hooks? You will have many, many more purchasing options. So far I quite like printing with the honeycomb base; it seems just like printing with wood mounted plates except that there's less to store. Really I'm just happy to be printing again.

Comments

[Rich]

Wow, congradulations! The prints sure came out great and I really like the design. How do you find this press prints compared to the smaller Kelsey?

I can share your excitement at printing something so nicely with a newly set up press as I had the same experience with my 10x15. It seemed like forever before I got to that point, and just recently too, but now I feel like I can really do the things I want without the press holding me back.

I can't wait to hear about the restoration, adjustment, etc.

So shout it out!

Rich

[Maggie]

Thanks Rich!
The main difference I've noticed so far between the two Kelseys is that the 6x10 really does feel a lot bigger. It doesn't sound that much larger, but it really is and I love it.

The other difference of note is that my old Kelsey didn't have nuts to lock in the impression screws, so they often slipped out of where I had set them if the humidity or something changed. I know that this is the case with many of the older style Kelseys, and I know that I could have bought longer screws and added nuts, but for some reason I never did (the old screws are really nice looking?).

Well, they changed the design to have the nuts for a reason. Obviously. I'm going to strongly recommend that the purchaser of the 5x8 Kelsey invest in new screws and nuts.

[Rich]

Are those quads or sorts glued to the topsheet for gauge pins?

[Maggie]

Yes, they're these angled 3M sorts that came with this strange font that I have yet to fully clean or identify, but it all has angled shoulders. It came with my 5x8 and so far, much of it is damaged.

Anyway, I usually pre-cut my paper, so if I'm printing very near the edge of the paper, I use glued on sorts or sometimes those stick on photo corners so that the gauge pin tongues don't get smashed. Then I put a rubber band around the gripper bars to hold the paper further, but business cards are so small that I can't do that.

It works pretty well usually. I think I had one misprint with this batch.

I always feel like trimming the paper later wastes more paper than just pre-cutting it, so I feel too guilty to trim later. Of course, pre-cutting can be a real pain for printing close to the edge.

Actually my whole paper cutting situation is irritating. I'm still using a small rotary cutter from an office supply store, so it takes forever and isn't terribly precise. I'd really like to get a small old paper cutter, but there are space issues and I haven't found one yet (but I haven't really been looking because of the space issues). I'm loath to buy one of the new Chinese stack cutters, but I may eventually break down and do it. I may also eventually break down and get rid of my couch, but I haven't yet reached that point. Talk to me again if I find a Pearl!