[6958] in APO Printshop
Re: Letter Press
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joseph Kesselman)
Sun Jan 22 19:28:40 2017
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2017 19:28:36 -0500
From: Joseph Kesselman <keshlam.cat.nospam@verizon.net>
Cc: apo-printshop <apo-printshop@mit.edu>
In-reply-to: <alpine.DEB.2.10.1701221812580.59598@buzzword-bingo.mit.edu>
On 1/22/2017 6:39 PM, Leonard H Tower Jr. wrote:
> Hi Elizabeth,
> [...]
Question: Is the hand press functional these days? I'm told we used to
use it for public demos/recruiting at activities midway (before my
time), and it would be a lower-risk tool for running a class as well as
avoiding back-office crowding. And it may be closer to what Franklin
would have been using, though I seem to remember that there were some
watermill-powered presses before steam.
Of course one can print with nothing more than type tied into a tray (or
a wood/linoleum cut), using a brayer to apply ink and a pad to impress
paper against it. Harder to get a clean impression without some
additional jigs, but it's quite traditional for proofs, woodcuts, etc.
So with more advance planning, I think an intro-to-printing IAP class
could be doable. It's not completely undoable now if someone had the
free time and energy to pull it together.
