I was searching on flickr.com for some letterpress business cards and ran into this image. Love the design and the simplicity of it.
Monthly Archive for January, 2010
I received my elum designs base plate today, and almost have all the supplies needed to print. Next up is some oil ink and I should be set.
A friend of mine sent me an image of his friend Christian Garibaldi’s new business cards that were done with edge coloring over at Dolce Press. The design is nice and simple which I really like.
If you have a moment go check out some of the work that Spark does. Here is a link to their flickr page. Their company site is really nice too, check it out.
The production of the video is well done, but what I really enjoy is the work created by Michael Dacey over at Repeat Press.
Letterpress Coasters from Quarter Productions on Vimeo.
So I spent countless hours cleaning up the press upon arrival, and decided I wanted to refinish the wheel and paint a few things back to it original state. My original plan that I wanted to do was to remove the wheel and have it powder coated, but I really want to use this machine as much as possible, so for now I just cleaned it up and gave it some new paint. Later I think I would like to restore it though. I also decided to redo the wood that was on the press. So I went to home depot and bought myself some oak and finished it off with some nice stain.
So my dad who restores classic cars for a living told me about this rust removal stuff called Naval Jelly and it works great. I used it throughout the press with scotch bright pad and steel wool. You basically take this jelly like substance and apply to areas that have surface rust and let it sit for about 5 minutes then afterwards scrub the area with a scotch bright pad. I found that in some cases I had to do it a few times to get it completely off.
I definitely think that the C&P sure gave this trailer a run for its money. I would have to say that this press had to have weighed more than 1200 lbs. Thanks Jorge for taking some video and pics….. and also for making the trip up with me… Much appreciated.
C&P 12×18 Letterpress on Trailer, ready for trip home. from Miguel Castro on Vimeo.
I was stumbling on the internet and decided to check briarpress.org to see if there was anything for sale that might be of interest to me. Lucky for me there happen to be a nice C&P for sale up in the Davis area of California. When I first saw it I thought it was a great deal, and lucky for me it just happen to be a distance which I could drive to and pick up which was 5.5 hrs north from SLO. I spoke with the lady and I decided I would get things together and make the drive up on a saturday morning. I was fortunate to have my friend Jorge in San Jose willing to help make the trip and help load this 1200 lb. beast. When we arrived the letterpress seemed in pretty good condition except for some minor surface rust here and there, but overall it was definitely worth the money. I wont go into to much detail on the loading of the press, but basically it was a NIGHTMARE! The press practically bent the ramps, broke some wood, and made me think so many times, ” This is not gonna make it” . But lucky for me, we were able to load it onto the trailer, make the drive home safely, and unloaded. And now it sits beautifully in my garage thanks to many of you who helped make it happen. – Jorge, Jonathan,Justin,Andrew, and neighbor brian.
So I was finally able to get this blog up and running using wordpress. Its been awhile since I have modified code so bare with me on this super epic design, I know… I mainly am using this blog to start documenting my letterpress experiences. I was lucky enough to find a press and now comes the fun part, figuring it all out and getting it up and running.