Letterpress in Finland, anyone?

Hei!

Kohopainanta taitaa olla melko harvinainen harrastus Suomessa - itse en ole kuullut kenestäkään joka sitä harrastaisi (meidän lisäksi), mutta ammattilaisia on tietysti paljon.

Hankimme Heidelbergin tiikelikoneen tuossa muutama vuosi sitten kollektiivimme käyttöön. Opiskelu on tosin sangen puuskittaista ja edelleen perustasolla, mutta koko ajan on eteenpäin menty.

Toisinaan olen selaillut tätä sivustoa, mutta vasta nyt kysymyksesi myötä ajattelin rekisteröityä. Kiitos siitä!

Terveisin
O-P Tennilä
Jyväskylä, Finland

yes

Heippa Olli-Pekka, Eric,

A little activity from Finland. A quick synopsis for those who do not wish to suffer an online tranlator.

I am promoting hobby and craft letterpress in South Africa and was asking if there was much of it going on in Finland to which Olli-Pekka indicated that he knows of no other hobby printers except himself in Finland. Commercial letterpress printing is still active. He aquired a Heidelberg for their collective a few years ago and they are still learning.

Regards

Kalle Pihlajasaari
—
Idyllic Press - Johannnesburg, South Africa

Hi,

This may come quite late, but I hope I can give you some further details.

Firstly, one of the main organizations in the Finnish letterpress printing is Päivälehden museo by Helsingin sanomain säätiö. They are very devoted in promoting letterpress printing, and they organize many activities in their museum:
http://www.paivalehdenmuseo.fi/painokellari.html

Myself, I come from Kokkola from Välikankaan kirjapainomuseo (Printing museum Välikangas). We have a very large collection of old letterpress equipment, both in the typing and printing department. We also thankfullyv know a buch of people who have used these machines throughout their lives.

For instance, we have working Ludlow, Intertype, Monotype machines, along with variety of type cases. Moreover, we have a large amount of different printing machines (several Heidelbergs, Frontex machines, Eickhoff plate presses). Some of the information can be found in Finnish from our website: http://www.kirjapainomuseo.fi .

Some machines from our collection are used for commercial printing, but, as the vast amount of machinery tells, the gathering of this collection has been the hobby/passion of our museums founder, Antti Välikangas, for several decades.

However, the biggest problem in relation to international communication & co-operation is that none of the guys who actively work in the letterpress department are not very fluent in speaking English :( However, if this is not an obstacle, I know that these people are very willing to offer help in the area of letterpress printing - it is, after all, very rare to find people who are interested in these things. (Especially in these latitudes!)

With best regards,
- Anita Välikangas