Being kind to metal type?
I’m slowly but surely getting my Adana 5 x 8 up and running with the help of a couple of Briarpress members (thank you!).
I just wanted to check that, in theory, if you’re seeing an impression of metal type on your tympan, the impression is too heavy and you’re risking damaging the type?
Looking about the discussion board here I’m getting the sense that if you want a bit of depth to the impression you should really be achieving this within the ‘thickness’ of the paper/card, and as soon as the impression shows on the tympan, you are running the risk of damaging the type?
Have I understood this correctly? Or is it not quite that simple?
Best,
Simon
Simon, I believe it is that simple. At least I have been operating under that theory.
But I leave it to others to comment further. Seems like a good question to me.
Truly
Marjorie
Simon
Not sure if this will help. Claire Van Vliet, who is considered the first consistent practitioner of edition printing with the Vandercook press, and a MacArthur foundation recipient, once wrote that in twenty years of printing on the Vandercook (she began in the mid-1950s) she was on her third tympan.
Heavy impression ruins type, paper, tympan, and likely isn’t so good for your press. If you don’t care about type, paper, and tympan, and maybe your press, you are fine.
Gerald
If you wish to do Smash Printing and print into the paper to achieve the impression you the artist wish, use poly or magnesium plates. You may smash away and only ultimately wear your plate.
If you wish to do fine printing, as that term was used in the craft years ago, print on the paper and not into it. Save the metal type for those who wish to practice the craft in this manner. Smash Printing wears type excessively.
Simon - there’s a previous post with a discussion about deep impression on Briar which is very interesting:
http://www.briarpress.org/6325
The fashion for deep impression has been made possible by the use of relatively cheap photopolymer plates which can be remade; as opposed to metal type which may be irreplaceable in the case of the rarer foundry type. And yes, the wear on your press needs to be considered as well.