staying warm!

I print in my garage and it is cold in the winter, I don’t mind so much beacuse my press is powered by treadle I personally stay pretty warm, but I worry about the ink distributing properly when it is so cold. I have stayed away from a space heater because the cleaning fluid is combustable and I don’t want to start a fire! Does anyone else out there have a similar situation and suggestion???

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Melissa

Switch your cleaning to Mineral Spirts. It works as good anything
and has a very low flash point. I have used next to furnace
For thirty years. Then you heat your area.

Good to know… I recently started using mineral spirits, but worried it was still too flamable. Thanks for your help!

I recently bought this space heater:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000A33B1C/thewire06-20

based on the recommendation here:

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/great-space-heaters/

The oil filled heaters are better than the electric heaters because they stay hot for a little while even after they’re turned off. And this one has a timer, so I set it to turn on 2 or 3 hours before I get to the space. It’s not as good as having constant heat, but it makes the space more comfortable and gives the press a head-start.

Place a candle under the ink disk and keep it lit when you are printing. The flame will warm the disk enough to keep the ink soft and pliable. A few drops of hot candle wax will provide enough “glue” to keep the candle standing up. This is how it was done, years ago, in cold printing shops. My C & P 8 X 12, built in 1906, had a big glob of old candle wax on the casting beneath the disk when I bought it from an old-time printer back in 1975. He explained it to me.

I understand the history of the use of the candle. Charming.
In Sweden in the olden days a young girl was chosen as a Christmas princess. She wore lighted candles in a wreath in her hair. Charming, perhaps.
Today I don’t think lighted candles are safe or appropriate in either place.

…before he was consumed in the fire!

I can remember christmas tree candles at my grandads as a child .

You extinguish the candle before washing up.

I eventually bought a clamp on 300 watt socket and a 150 watt heat lamp and use that to keep some heat in the shop and to keep the ink disk nice and warm. I also use it when running ink on the windmill—clamping onto the washup/powder bowl standard.

@ inky,

At the college where I work we regularly celebrate St Lucy’s Day, December 13th; the Lucia Queen (not really Christmas) is chosen from among the students and still wears a wreath with four lighted candles atop her (almost always) blond hair. She is instructed not to wear hair spray that day or nod… The custom continues in Sweden, although the “candles” are mostly LEDs these days.

@ all,

The candle under the disk trick worked very well for us at the Timothy Dwight Press in New Haven 30 years ago, although we also often prepped the inking plate by warming it with a hair dryer before inking it up.

Obviously, inky has a heated shop. Charming.

i think Inky heats his shop with candles???

Thanks for the ideas! My ink disk an I will both be warm! I think I may go with the space heater and possibly a heat lamp, but good to know a candle could work in a pinch!

Thanks again everyone… I love this community!

-Melissa

Stupidly simple idea/principal which why seems to enter nobody,s head (assuming that the U.S.A. is at least as advanced as the U.K. and bearing in mind the time frame of your Grand Coulee Dam, Hoover Dam etc etc )There must be many millions of kilowatts of electricity available during the hours of darkness for supply at greatly reduced rates (like 25-30 % of normal day rate) so it shouldnt be rocket science to install a night store heater to take advantage of said night rate, via a programmable time clock, here in U.K. rads available from 1,500 to 3,000+ Watts, probably 50/60 cents per night!!!Think of the advantages Workshop Warm, Ink can on a trivet above the rad, Paper usable, rollers warm, and most everything at ambient temperature, BLISS. Time clocked Out for 4TH of July, Xmas etc, ONE slight disadvantage because of the way the system operates, if one night is cold and the next day is comparative heat wave, the radiators take 24-48 hours to cool down without recharge, so it may be a case of sweating for a shift or two, but small sacrifice for 300+ or more good productive days.?!?!?! Cant imagine that Night Store system doesnt exist in U.S.A. Or mayhap Las Vegas gets exclusive rights to all spare juice at preferential rates!!!!!!!

A night storage heater is basically a pile of bricks with a heater underneath all inside a box. Run the heater at night when electricity is cheap rate and turn off in the day. Only problem is you can’t move the heater easily if you put it in the wrong place.