Need your advice

Hello folks, I am from India and I am just beginning to experiment with letterpress. However I am facing lots of odds because letterpress is really dead here in my city, and most of these machines are used only for numbering and other trivial tasks. The plate makers are also very very few in numbers and they don’t really do a professional enough job with the plates as they don’t seem to appreciate letterpress anymore, which is sad.

However, I recently managed to locate a place which does photopolymer developing. However, these people have no specific knowledge about letterpress, as these photopolymers are used for printing labels, plastic packaging etc. So I need to give them exact details about the kind of photopolymer I would need (they have various thickness and relief depth).

So, can someone please tell me what relief depth and overall thickness of the photopolymer I would need for some good impression.

And also, are all photopolymers made of the same material? I am intending to use a platen letterpress, and put it through some good impressions, so will they be able to handle that pressure and pounding, compared to a metal plate?

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If you can get it, try Nyloprint WS152. It hold fine detail very well, have excellent exposure latitude, and takes a hit nicely.

Hi - in order to guide you it would be good if you could tell us what kind of platen press you have for a start.

You’ll find polymer very durable and capable of handling the impression meted out by a press.It might be worth reading up on photopolymer: Gerald Lange’s book “Printing digital type on the hand-operated flatbed cylinder press” is very informative, as is the Boxcar Press website which has information on plate thickness and plate hardness.

You will need a base to mount your polymer plates on to bring them up to .918 inches high (type-high) - some swear by wood, others by aluminium, it’s all here on Briar if you dig a little.

Once you have a base with a mounted polymer plate you will have to experiment with packing your press to decide the level of impression you want - some people swear by a ‘kiss’ impression, others want heavy impression.

Phone around printers in your area, I would have thought surplus letterpress equipment is available in India if you do a little research.

Good luck!