Types of job work - Platen Press

Was in an old letterpress shop a long time ago, there was a Golding set up for diecutting, couldn’t figure out what they were cutting, the owner showed me, it was bulsa wood airplanes, he hold me they were also printed on the Golding. The question should be What can’t you do on a platten press. Dick G.

Dick is absolutely right there. A handfed platen can do things that other presses cannot. But don’t expect to do a full-chase form, or solids approaching or exceeding the circumference of the rollers. With lighter forms, you can do go from business cards to books, anything inbetween, and quite a few things outside the norm (like balsawood airplanes, a great story).

…and if you’re tired of printing you can crush cans…

Crazy things I’ve printed on platen presses:
grocery bags
paper bags with string handles
paper plates
shipping tags with wire hangers
shipping tags with string hangers
catalogs 1/8 thick
balsa wood business cards
ribbons of all kinds
envelopes with metal clasps
paper in all sort of odd shapes from round to triangular

I’m sure there are other things that I’ll remember later.

Most of my platen presses (all Goldings) came from an old family owned business and were used to print clothing labels back in the day.

“Onesies”… but watch out for those little snaps!

I’ve printed tee shirts, the ones with the pockets dont come out very good, tried a tee shirt on a vandercook once, took 2 hours to pull it out of the gears. Dick G.

Wonder if you can die cut Christmas cookies? tried pizza, the rollers can roll out the dough, the hot plate gets warm enough to cook the pizza, having problems with the sauce and cheese falling into the press. Maybe a map press?

Dick, You made me laugh out loud. Both posts.

I bought a cute letterpress-printed-in-red onesie for my 10 month old at a mini-wayzegoose recently; washed it with whites. Now we have a lot of pink towels.

Don’t forget finishing—creasing, numbering, perforating etc etc.

put a bunch of clothing (folded nicely) into a large zip lock baggie. lay the baggie on the platen with the zip lock above the top of the platen so you can get to it when the press is closed. then close the press slowly and at full impression zip the bag shut! then open! HA! who needs a vaccum sealer with those expensive bags!!!

put you hampster in a small cage then tape the cage to the platen. then start closing the press, it should scare the crap outta him… don’t crush him though. it will wreck the cage. :) :)

You can always do what Mr. J. Denthead does…crack walnuts, and pecans….don’t forget your safety glasses and helmet…dents in the head are NOT good!

Wipe the oil from the drip pan, lock up a boxcar base, you can crush grapes and make wine.

OK…those last comments are not serious. Very funny, but not serious.

You can put a foiling unit on these presses and do foil stamping and embossing. i have seen kluges that would run from a web. Also saw a kluge that was 5 presses hitched together, the wab ran thru all 5 machines. Dick G.

yes dick, you are correct. the most web flows i have seen together was seven. we built this for a show in germany. this had a unit at front that would take a virgin roll and put the “computer printer drive” holes in the sides, then the presses and finally a “fan folder” at the end. it is quite the rig as the whole whole assy operates off of one press. speed is set manually at press one then photo eyes between each press manage the loop between the presses, auto-adjusting the speed of each of the other equipment. it was years ago, but, i think it was about 45 feet long. so, from a virgin roll of paper, you ended up with printer holes on the sides, perfing down the sides, perfing to separate into sheets, 5 colors of either ink or foil, numbered, and finally fan folded into a box ready for shipping. very cool…

Driving nails?

Many yardsticks in my collection came from a letterpress, but not the table-top size

You can press flowers….and yes most of us are not serious, but you really can do all of the above. Just have fun and be silly once in a while.