[6810] in APO Printshop
Re: General Inquiry - Printing Invitations
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Leonard H Tower Jr.)
Wed Dec 3 01:34:55 2014
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2014 01:34:52 -0500 (EST)
From: "Leonard H Tower Jr." <tower@alum.mit.edu>
To: Joseph Kesselman <keshlam.cat.nospam@verizon.net>
cc: apo-printshop@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <547EA751.5020904@verizon.net>
Molly:
We might be able to sell them the cards and envelopes they need.
If they like what we have in inventory.
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Keshlam:
I wanted more info from the potential customer first, but:
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All:
* Experimenting would be a good idea, if someone wants to.
* I really prefer to put time into improving the shop, than being
on-hand to advise whomever tries this.
So if Keshlam. or another experienced journeyman wants to help
Nathan et al get this done, PLEASE step up.
* Benazeer doesn't believe she can get quality for the plates she
wants to print for her book project without leveling the platen.
I'm not sure why. Around the size of the certificate border. Not
sure if it's one page, or a double page.
Been a while since anyone has done a sizable plate. The platen may
(or may not) be more out of parallel since then.
* I do not remember anyone getting a halftone to print well on either
of our presses. Has someone? Details please! (Most of the
halftones came from The Tech, when they planned to trash them.)
* This wedding couple might be planning to do their plates in plastic.
Alex had a plastic plate done at the shop in Central Square to do
the back of the Reg Day Schedule/Rush Promo cards. It had thick
lines and type, and began to degrade noticeably around a 100
impressions. (Alex, correct me as needed ; - )
Metal plates would be much better.
* IF they do NOT need these until February, or better yet, March,
and be willing to pay for the experiments...
Of course, Molly could decide to not charge them for the
experiments.
IMHO, they should pay for the plates, either way.
* The problem with bleeds is the gauge pins.
If you can resolve that (several ways):
To handle a bleed, you can put a frisket on the grab bars,
replacing it as needed.
If it's a stiff plastic,
you can clean it.
Usually wise to make holes where the gauge pins are,
or go with stacked leads for gauge pins.
yiLFS -len
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2014 01:01:53 -0500
From: Joseph Kesselman <keshlam.cat.nospam@verizon.net>
Cc: apo-printshop@mit.edu
Subject: Re: General Inquiry - Printing Invitations
On 12/2/2014 11:06 PM, Leonard H Tower Jr. wrote:
> Even if there are no fine lines,
> I doubt we can get even impression off a plate that size.
Len *may* be being overcautious.
A 5x7 card is not necessarily a 5x7-plus-bleed plate. Border would bring it
down; text (if not printed over/within the plate) might bring it down
farther. (Actually, I'm not sure how to print a bleed-over-on-all-sides plate
on our press without printing oversized paper and then trimming.)
There's also the question, as Len pointed out, of how much detail is in the
plates these folks want to use. If it's on the order of an ivy border, I
don't see that as being overly difficult even if one has to do
micro-adjustments to bedding, run all three rollers, and be extra-careful
with inking. If it's something that requires wide areas of ink, halftones,
and so on it gets more difficult. (CF the challenge of keeping an entire page
of text balanced between under- and over-inked. But "if it happened, it ought
to be possible.")
We do have some large plates in the shop -- the two-part certificate for
example, border and sunrise. When I was running the cuts catalog I didn't
attempt to fine-tune the printing thereof so the sample is pretty sloppy,
just enough to show what it is -- and I don't know whether it's damaged at
this point. We also have some fine-detail plates which approach that size, eg
the halftoned photos.
If someone wanted to spend some time experimenting with what we have on hand,
we could get a better idea of what the press is and isn't currently capable
of.
So depending on what they actually want, when they want it, and how much time
we have to evaluate, this may or may not be out of our current scope. If
folks are interested, I'd favor responding "maybe" and getting more specifics
about both the job and the state of the press before deciding yea or nay.
-- Keshlam (who has so far failed to make himself more available, so you may
want to take his blatherings with an appropriate block of salt)
