Obtaining position/register w/ deckled paper on Windmill

I’m about to experiment printing deckled-edged paper on my Windmill. I’m thinking two-three inks on 12x18” cotton paper. Any advice? I suspect it will be a bit of a challenge getting position/register the inks? Any tricks? I’d imagine I’m not the only one who’s ever tried it.

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Be sure you always feed from the same edge, and choose the edge that has the least variation of the deckle. If you are not printing tight register (meaning colors overlapping or butting) I think the variation will be slight and unnoticeable. But registering multiple colors on deckle edge paper is, in the old terms, a hair shirt. It is also possible that the gripper will be a bit erratic if the deckle is very wide.

Bob

I’ve die-cut a fake deckle edge after the job was printed. People loved it. The deckle edge diecutting rule was available back in the day.
I bought enough then to last until I closed that shop in ‘07. It may not even be available anymore. I had it ground from .937 to .918 by the local machine shop.

Was it Adrian Wilson who wrote of printing deckle edge stock on auto-feed cylinder presses? His solution was to locate exact position of guides, relative to the feed pile, and then use a file or rasp to remove the deckle from the stack so every sheet hit the head-stops and side guide without a feathered edge there. It shouldn’t be noticed on final bound book.

Thanks everyone… yes, it’s going to be a challenge and the register will be pretty tight. Perhaps I will need to cut the two edges for bottom and pump side register to keep myself sane. ;-)