A Little Book of Making Tools and Equipment for the Studio

Anon

Description

A comprehensive guide to the collection of essential tools and equipment needed to set up and enhance your printing studio space.

This antiquated volume offers practical insights, tips, and step-by-step instructions to help you equip an efficient workspace and immerse yourself in the forgotten art of printing. Covering the history of the printing press, as well as detailing how to make rubber stamps, stencils, and line printing blocks, this volume is an essential guide for artists and crafters.

The chapters featured in this book in include:

• A Brief History of the Printing Press


• Making a Printing Press


• Making Sympathetic or Invisible Inks


• Making Line Printing-Blocks at Home


• Letter Formation for Ticket and Sign-Writing


• Rubber Stamp Making


• Stencil Cutting and Stencilling

A Brief History of the Printing Press; Making a Printing Press; Making Sympathetic or Invisible Inks; Making Line Printing-Blocks at Home; Letter Formation for Ticket and Sign-Writing; Rubber Stamp Making; Stencil Cutting and Stencilling

Sujets

• Techniques
• Printmaking
• Art

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 09 septembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473359055
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Little Book of Making Tools and Equipment for the Studio
Includes Instructions for Making a Printing Press, Line Printing Blocks, Rubber Stamp Making, Stencil Cutting and Stencilling





Copyright © 2023 Old Hand Books
This edition is published by Old Hand Books, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk


Contents
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PR INTING PRESS
MAKING A PR INTING PRESS
MAKING SYMPATHETIC OR IN VISIBLE INKS
MAKING LINE PRINTING-BL OCKS AT HOME
LETTER FORMATION FOR TICKET AND SIGN-WRITING
RUBBER STAMP MAKING
STENCIL CUTTING AND STENCILLING




A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PRINTING PRESS
A printing press is a device for evenly printing ink onto a wide variety of mediums, generally paper or cloth. Printing presses apply pressure to a print medium, resting on an inked surface made of movable type, thereby transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press are widely regarded as among the most influential events in human history, revolutionizing the way people conceive and describe the world they live in, and ushering in the period o f modernity.
The world's first movable type printing was invented and developed in China by the Han Chinese print er Bi Sheng (990-1051 CE) between the years 1041 and 1048. It was made from porcelain. His contemporary Shen Kuo (1031-1095) wrote extensively about the new movable type printing technology in the Dream Pool Essays , which were published in 1088. This technology was transmitted to Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty, where Korean inventors subsequently made many technological improvements and innovations upon the original technology. In 1234, they created the world's first metal movable-type press for printing paper books. This was a full 216 years before Gutenberg's prin ting press.
These early eastern developments led to the printing of a Korean book, using the ancient Chinese writing system, known in Korean as the Jikji, in 1377. It is the oldest extant movable metal printed book. This form of metal movable type technology has been described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as similar to Gutenberg's, and meant that block printing became common in China as early as 1300. Images printed on cloth for religious purposes could be quite large and elaborate, and when paper became relatively easily available, around 1400, the medium transferred very quickly to small woodcut religious images and playing cards printed on paper. These prints were produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onward, and also became popular in Europe.
Around the mid-fifteenth century, block-books (woodcut books with both text and images, usually carved in the same block), emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts and books printed with movable type. These were all short heavily illustrated works, the bestsellers of the day, repeated in many different block-book versions: the Ars moriendi and the Biblia pauperum were the most common. There is still some controversy among scholars as to whether their introduction preceded or followed the introduction of movable type, with the range of estimated dates being between about 14 40 and 1460.
The rapid economic and socio-cultural development of late medieval society in Europe created favourable intellectual and technological conditions for Gutenberg's invention: the entrepreneurial spirit of emerging capitalism increasingly made its impact on medieval modes of production, fostering economic thinking and improving the efficiency of traditional work-processes. The sharp rise of medieval learning and literacy amongst the middle classes also led to an increased demand for books, which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating. His invention is traditionally dated to 1450, though the exact date of Gutenberg's press is debated based on existing screw presses that were an essential component of the printing pr ess device.
Gutenberg, a goldsmith by profession, developed his printing system by both adapting existing technologies and making inventions of his own. His newly devised hand mould made possible the rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities. The printing press displaced earlier methods of printing and led to the first assembly line-style mass production of books. A single Renaissance printing press could produce 3,600 pages per workday, compared to about 2,000 by typographic block-printing prevalent in East Asia, and a few by hand-copying. Books of bestselling authors such as Luther and Erasmus were sold by the hundreds of thousands in the ir lifetime.
Printing soon spread from Mainz, Germany, to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries. However the first book printed in English was not published until 1475, some twenty years later. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes. In the sixteenth century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 200 million copies. The operation of a press became so synonymous with the enterprise of printing that, by metonymy, it lent its name to a new branch of media; 'the press'. The importance of printing as an emblem of modern achievement and of the ability of so-called Moderns to rival the Ancients, in whose teachings much of Renaissance learning was grounded, was enhanced by the frequent juxtaposition of the recent invention of printing to those of firearms and the nautical compass. In 1620, the English philosopher Francis Bacon indeed wrote that these three inventions 'changed the whole face and state of the world.'
In Renaissance Europe, the arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the era of mass communication which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation and threatened the power of political and religious authorities; the sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class. Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its people led to the rise of proto-nationalism, accelerated by the flowering of the European vernacular languages to the detriment of Latin's status as li ngua franca.
With the advent of industrial mechanisation, inking was carried out by rollers that passed over the face of the type, then moved out of the way onto an ink plate to pick up a fresh film of ink for the next sheet. Meanwhile, a sheet of paper slid against a hinged platen, which then rapidly pressed onto the type and swung back again as the sheet was removed and the next sheet inserted. As the fresh sheet of paper replaced the printed paper, the now freshly-inked rollers ran over the type again.
As this process progressed in the nineteenth century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale—and Western-style printing was adopted all over the world. It has become practically the sole medium for modern bulk printing. Rotary presses (in which the images to be printed are curved around a cylinder) are used for high-speed work, with traditional letter-presses remaining in use for artisanal creations. Fully automated twentieth-century presses, such as the Kluge and 'Original' Heidelberg Platen (the 'Windmill'), incorporated pneumatic sheet feed a nd delivery.
As is evident from this extremely brief introduction to printing and printing presses, it is an aspect of human technology and innovation with truly global consequences. The printing press has shaped society as we know it, and continues to have a vast impact on our daily lives. From the first porcelain presses in China, through to Gutenberg's press and modern oscillatory machines, it is a field which continues to evolve in the present day—and it is hoped the current reader enjoys this book on the subject.


MAKING A PRINTING PRESS
AMATEUR printing is fascinating work, but it requires more initial outlay than the average hobby, and its first results are liable to be di sappointing.
The first essential of a printing press is that it be capable of giving a steady, firm and strong pressure. Another condition is that the bed be firm; thus wood is not satisfactory for the type to stand on, and this also applies to the platen, though in a less degree. The bed and platen must, when they come together to make the impression, be as nearly parallel as possible, otherwise the impression will be uneven, the type being nearly forced through the paper in some places, and scarcely touching i t in others.


Fig. 1.—Side Elevation of Press with I mpression On
Another source of disappointment is the size of the press. This should be at least capable of printing on large note-paper—that is, the actual type surface should not be less than 7 in. by 5 in.; and an iron press to print this size will be foun d expensive.


Fig. 2.—Side Elevation of Press with Im pression Off
No home-made machine constructed largely of wood will equal one made of iron throughout, the principal failing being the speed at which it can be worked. But as an amateur rarely has anything approaching a long run to do, this need not enter into his c alculations.


Fig. 3.—Plan of Press with Levers and Bed