[6960] in APO Printshop
Re: Letter Press
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Leonard H Tower Jr.)
Sun Jan 22 23:58:01 2017
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2017 23:57:56 -0500 (EST)
From: "Leonard H Tower Jr." <tower@alum.mit.edu>
To: Joseph Kesselman <keshlam.cat.nospam@verizon.net>
cc: apo-printshop <apo-printshop@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <58854E34.5020000@verizon.net>
Hi Joe,
* the small/baby/hand press is not operational. maybe this summer.
* the way the shop is set up now, it's hard for more than two people
or two pairs of people to set type at once.
only one or one pair of people can lockup at a time.
limits class size.
if the large table up front is clear, be possible to move type
setting & lockup out there. but having novices move full trays of
type has its risks.
* the actives have up to now, when asked, have not wanted to have
non-APO people (& now non-SWE people) have card key access to the
APOffice to use the press (once qualified.
so we would teach people, but then they wouldn't have access,
without an APO brother to babysit.
* could have a number of sessions over IAP?
limited to four people each?
how many are each of you willing to teach?
* unlikely, but if we had double the floor space, we could have five slant tops
instead of two, without buying any (i have two at home, I brought a
while ago.)
& a second lockup station.
* the actives could consider letting SWE members with card key access
become qualified press ops.
pluses?
minuses?
* i sue to do a survey of all printing methods evening seminar/lecture
over IAP for interested press-ops & brothers.
i could again with a few months notice.
yiLFS -len
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2017 19:28:36 -0500
From: Joseph Kesselman <keshlam.cat.nospam@verizon.net>
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.
