British Letterpress

Tag: London

  • Hand & Eye: New Heidelberg Cylinder Press

    An account from Hand & Eye of the instal­la­tion of their lat­est press.

  • St Bride Library

    St Bride Library

    The St. Bride Foun­da­tion is home to the renown St. Bride’s Library, a won­der­ful col­lec­tion of let­ter­press (and gen­er­al print­ing) resources.

    Ben Wein­er from St Bride Library out­lines the class­es avail­able:

    In Autumn 2010 St Bride Foun­da­tion began to run reg­u­lar class­es in relief print­ing tech­niques at the Foun­da­tion build­ing in Bride Lane for the first time since the 1920s.

    We launched the new work­shop with a range of short cours­es that teach basic skills and give famil­iar­i­ty with some of the ter­mi­nol­o­gy, equip­ment and activ­i­ties essen­tial to let­ter­press work. These cours­es run in the day­time and dur­ing evenings and week­ends. Par­tic­i­pants get to use some of the press­es which form part of St Bride Library’s col­lec­tion as well as oth­er equip­ment includ­ing an Adana and a Van­der­cook press.

    We plan to cov­er the kin­dred trades, espe­cial­ly linocut­ting and book bind­ing. We also plan a range of more advanced cours­es that will give par­tic­i­pants more scope to cre­ate and ful­fil their own briefs work­ing with the guid­ance of an expe­ri­enced prac­ti­tion­er.

    We wel­come enquiries about our cours­es and hope to become a sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tor to the let­ter­press print­ing com­mu­ni­ty. Full details of the work­shop are online.

  • Vicobold Machines: Victoria Platens

    Vicobold Machines: Victoria Platens

    These press­es are of Ger­man descent — made by Rock­stroh-Werke AG of Hei­de­nau — but were made in the UK by Frank F Per­shke.

    Rock­stroh-Werke AG made three mod­els of machine -

    • Vic­to­ria (Mod­el ​‘B’)
    • Auto-Vic­to­ria (Mod­el ​‘C’)
    • Kobold

    The three UK-made mod­els were -

    • Vicobold
    • Autovi­cobold
    • Autovic

    Infor­ma­tion from Frank F Per­shke adverts is repro­duced below. The address giv­en was Dover House, 170 West­min­ster Bridge Road, Lon­don SE1

    General Principles

    The key fea­ture of these machines is that they employ a ​‘par­al­lel plat­en’ approach. The platens are not hinged (like most oth­er press­es), but runs on rails in the ver­ti­cal posi­tion. This ensures that impres­sion is even over the face of the forme.

    Ink­ing is by a rotat­ing cylin­der at the head of the machine — rather than an ink­ing disk. The machines are based on the Vic­to­ria Heavy Art Plat­en.

    Vicobold

    Machine Max Sheet Size Inside Chase Size Plat­en Size Space Occu­pied Pow­er Required Net Weight
    Vicobold 10.25″ x 14″ (26 x 35.5cm) 9.5″ x 13.25″ (24 x 33.5cm) 11″ x 14.25″ (28 x 36cm) 49″ x 47″ (124 x 120cm) 0.5hp 8.5cwt (425kg)

    This machine is hand-fed and fol­lows the same prin­ci­ples as the oth­ers in the series. Ink is sup­plied to the ink­ing drum through a screw con­trolled duct, and trans­ferred to the forme with two rollers. Impres­sion strength can be changed with a sin­gle nut at the back of the plat­en: the par­al­lel approach takes care of all of the forme with that one change.

    There were at least two mod­els — the Mod­el ​‘C’ which was motorised; and a Mod­el ​‘T’ run with a trea­dle.

    Autovicobold

    Machine Max Sheet Size Inside Chase Size Plat­en Size Space Occu­pied Pow­er Required Net Weight
    Autovi­cobold 10.25″ x 14″ (26 x 35.5cm) 9.5″ x 13.25″ (24 x 33.5cm) 11″ x 14.25″ (28 x 36cm) 38″ x 62″ (97 x 219cm) (with auto feed­er in posi­tion) 1.5hp 13cwt (650kg)

    This machine is essen­tial­ly the Vicobold with an auto­mat­ic feed and deliv­ery sys­tem. A sell­ing fea­ture was that the feed and deliv­ery sys­tem could be wheeled away when need­ed: allow­ing the machine to be used as a hand-fed machine, and also to allow open access to the work­ing area dur­ing set-up.

    Autovic

    Machine Max Sheet Size Inside Chase Size Plat­en Size Space Occu­pied Pow­er Required Net Weight
    Autovic 13.375″ x 18.125″ (34 x 46cm) 13.5″ x 17.75″ (34.5 x 45cm) 14.25″ x 18.875″ (36 x 48cm) 56″ x 65″ (141 x 165cm) (with auto feed­er in posi­tion) 1.5hp 24cwt (1220kg)

    This machine is a larg­er size than the oth­er two mod­els, and occu­pies a sub­stan­tial­ly larg­er space. It was sup­plied with an option­al feed sys­tem. Ink­ing is by means of three rollers: two are in con­tact with then forme on the way ​‘down’, and the third roller is engaged with the form only on the way ​‘up’. There are two addi­tion­al rollers in the ink­ing mech­a­nism for ink dis­tri­b­u­tion. An auto­mat­ic wash-up sys­tem is also includ­ed.

  • Model Press

    Model Press

    “Every­one his own print­er” was the phrase used by many, but claimed by the Mod­el Press peo­ple. This small press was nev­er sold just as a toy, or machine for the hob­by­ist, but was mar­ket­ed to appeal to the widest audi­ence.

    William Clark and Joshua Daugh­a­day patent­ed the design for the Mod­el Press in the USA in 1874. Car­lo Giuseppe Squin­tani took the British patent out on 10 April 1877 — the Mod­el Press had arrived in the UK.

    Squin­tani sold press­es from Sum­mer 1877 — but there’s a ques­tion over whether those first press­es were man­u­fac­tured in the UK or import­ed. By 1888 Squin­tani’s adverts claimed the press­es were made by a high-qual­i­ty engi­neer in Lon­don.  Bob Richard­son has recent­ly dis­cov­ered that the engi­neer was Peter Hook­er Ltd in Waltham­stow.

    To ensure widest appeal the press­es were made in a vari­ety of sizes from the No. 0 (with a 2 and one-eighth inch by 3 3/4 inch chase) to the trea­dle-dri­ven No. 6 Job (with a 9″ x 13″ chase). The Amer­i­can and French num­ber­ing sys­tem for mod­el press­es dif­fered from the UK ver­sions. The table below shows the key sizes.

    Mod­el Chase Size (inch­es) Hand- or Trea­dle-dri­ven Weight* (lbs)
    No. 0 2.125 x 3.75 Hand None Giv­en
    No. 1 3.125 x 5.125 Hand 65
    No. 2 5 x 7.5 Hand 112
    No. 3 6 x 9 Hand 148
    No. 3 High Speed 6 x 9 Trea­dle None Giv­en
    No. 4 7 x 10.5 Hand 248
    No. 5 Job 7 x 11 Trea­dle None Giv­en
    No. 6 Job 9 x 13 Trea­dle None Giv­en

    * Weights from John Ryder’s Print­ing for Plea­sure.

    Mod­el Trea­dle Press (from Excel­sior Cat­a­logue)

    W E Cook adver­tised the ​‘Improved Mod­el’ press between 1898 and 1900  in only one size: an 11″ x 5″ trea­dle plat­en.

    While the Mod­el Press was sold for near­ly a hun­dred years, the appeal of the Adana seemed to eclipse it despite the Mod­el being a more stur­dy-built press.

    In com­mon with Adana, Squin­tani sold com­plete out­fits includ­ing the press, type and ink from their show­rooms in Far­ring­don, Lon­don.

    Contributors

    Infor­ma­tion on this page kind­ly sup­plied by Toby Hard­wick, Nick Smith and Bob Richard­son.