I’ve used the term ‘small presses’ to cover anything that’s operated by hand. These presses were often marketed to the amateur, but many professional jobbing printers used them for smaller work — like tickets and letter headings. Small presses have a number of advantages: they’re portable; they need no power to work; they’re easy to clean and use.
The heavier professional machines, designed to print formes involving bold type and blocks generally have a set of rollers dedicated to distributing and preparing or ‘milling’ the ink and another set, the forme rollers, which apply that ink to the type. The lighter treadle or powered ‘jobbing’ platens and the table-top hand platens make do with just one set of, usually only two, rollers to perform both functions. The sheer simplicity of table-top platens such as Adanas and those small treadle or powered platens with an ‘impression throw-off’ allows one to fool their basic mechanisms into behaving as though they have at least twice as many rollers which results in a better ink film and, thus better printing. By running a thinner film of well-loosened ink and rolling the forme twice or more for each impression your little press will produce far better work.
The builders of larger platen presses spent a lot of money on mechanisms to simulate what old hand-press printers using Albions, etc. called a ‘sinking pull’. This allows the forme to dwell in contact with the paper rather than jump straight on and off and again the result is a better printed sheet. This is easily achieved with a hand-press, whether Albion or Adana and well worth the little extra time involved.
Adanas, in particular, compromise inking to allow one to print on paper larger than the platen. To keep the roller tracks below the platen the metal or plastic runners at the ends of the rollers are of larger diameter than the actual roller. The surface speed of the roller over the type is thus different from that of the runner which results in the roller skidding slightly across the type which causes ‘ink slur’ rather than an even coating. If printing paper sufficiently smaller than the inner width of the chase, one can overcome this by fitting a fairly thick piece of wood rule, to act as a ‘type-high bearer’ for the rollers, at each end of the chase. This will also necessitate removing the ‘patent head-lay’ fitted to most Adanas (since its ends would crush the rule), and using traditional front or head and side-lays. These can be either quads glued to the tympan, slips of folded card attached with masking tape, or if you are lucky enough to find some, metal gauge pins, some of which are adjustable, which are pushed into suitably placed holes pricked or slit into the top sheet of the tympan.
Adana’s head-lay and frisket gripper fingers are infamous for crushing the type of the unwary — converting to card lays attached after taking a proof impression is part of the answer. The 8 x 5 has two frisket fingers which are best replaced by stretching the sort of rubber band the postman drops on your front path between the frisket arms. This will not damage the type of the absent-minded, but will still lift the printed sheet clear of the type forme.
This guide kindly contributed by John R Smith of the Old Forge Press. Originally appeared in the newsletter of the Oxford Guild of Printers
For those wishing to print letterpress, the choice is wide-but it’s all second-hand, nowadays. Ads in news-sheets such as the Oxford Guild of Printers and that of the British Printing Society, local auctions and eBay provide leads. All the type you are likely to be offered is of a standard height, so interchangeable between machines of differing size and make. Prices are essentially negotiable, there being no ‘book’ or ‘official’ scale it is simply a matter of arriving at a figure acceptable to both parties.
Small presses requiring little space, which can be lifted by one or two people and carried in a private car are more in demand and thus cost more. That includes most bench-mounted hand-presses, smaller treadle-platens and smaller galley presses. Never intended to print more than roughly-inked readers’ proofs, few galley presses incorporate any means of accurately positioning paper and are best suited to short run posters, smallish lino-cuts, etc. Some, such as the later Farley series, with adjustable impression height, autolift, grippers and feed-board, and occasionally with a primitive self-inking system can, with great care, produce consistent high-quality results; relatively light and compact, these are worth seeking. Superficial rust is easily cleaned but the resilient ‘clothing’ of the impression cylinder should be sound. This ‘rubber coating’ can be replaced, but measure up and get a quote.
Appearance can affect price, the more decorative machines fetching more than their austere counterparts. The first generation of iron hand-presses, with horizontal platens — Albions, Columbians, Imperials, etc. are much sought after, in their smaller sizes, as ikons of interior decoration and tend to pass a genteel retirement in carpeted printing works foyers or enthusiasts’ drawing rooms. Their current value is thus around 500 times what they were deemed worth 50 years ago. Like professional view-cameras, they are capable, in well-informed sensitive hands, of high quality work of amazing versatility, but demand a well-planned almost ceremonial approach. For texts they definitely constitute ‘the long way round’ — if you regularly make coffee in a Cona you will probably enjoy using one; if the ‘destination is more important than the journey’, stick with self-inking vertical platen and cylinder presses.
The prices of most other presses bulkier than the smallest treadle platens reflect the space required to house them and, perhaps more important, the cost of hiring special equipment — or professional help — to carry them. Awkward locations necessitating hoists and some dismantling to get a machine out of its current home can reduce its value to zero, irrespective of condition. Once you have learn’t your way around them, larger professional machines can more easily deliver high quality printing than their small cheaply built counterparts. Some, when new cost the price of a decent car when a small Adana cost the price of a wheelbarrow! If you have space, a machine which owes little more than the cost of transport can thus prove a good bargain.
However, few of us require high speed — even by 1950s standards — the ability to hand-feed paper of awkward shape and substance being our priority. So the mechanical complexity of fast production machines requiring expert maintenance might be best avoided. The better-class hand-fed platens to consider include the Arab, treadle or power-driven and the much heavier, powered Vicobold and similar art-platens. But using an treadle platen demands good co-ordination of hands and foot; operators of un-guarded platens frequently lost a finger or two in the bad old days!
Perhaps the most versatile-and easiest to use and maintain are the precision repro. presses of the 1950s and ’60s. Most common are those by Vandercook, their British copies by Western (later re-badged as S.B. Pre-Press), FAG and Littlejohn.
All feature a dressable cylinder, allowing precise make-ready, single-phase power inking which is easily dis-connected to allow hand-inking when required, and precision hairline register with micrometer adjustment. The smaller ones, printing around 15 x 22 inch have a hand-wound impression cylinder, larger ones, up to four times that size have power-driven cylinders, usually 3‑phase; converters are available.
The smaller ones, occupying a 6–7 x 3 foot space, weigh around 12cwt. and can be loaded via the powered tail-lift of certain hire-firms’ vans or pick-up trucks. They can be rolled over hard surfaces using suitable lengths of scaffold pole or hired machinery skates and will pass through domestic doorways (with handles of machine and door removed). Two people can, with a little thought move, install and level them without problems — the larger ones require more of everything-other than cash! Several firms can re-clothe the ink rollers. Most of the more precise wearing parts are obtainable new, as Vandercook spares, from the USA, most other bits and pieces can be repaired by ‘blacksmith’ technology or found in engineering suppliers or motorcycle shops — again, try Yellow Pages.
As with all things…caveat emptor!
