The Printing Works recreates the activity of a letterpress job-printing shop in the early 1900's - setting type letter-by-letter in the manner invented by Gutenberg in 1450, and printing it on century-old presses. The craft and skill that started a communication revolution ! The Works is situated in the Museum's village setting of 13 heritage buildings - including six registered with the N.Z. Historic Places Trust.
The Museum is open daily until 31 May
from 10.am to 4.00.p.m.
Closed Tuesday & Wednesday
1 June until 30 September
at 169 Main Street
(State Highway 2) Greytown
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The Printing Works is open
1 to 4.p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays and at other times by arrangement. Group visits to the museum are specially welcome and the Printing Works opens for such occasions.
Phone 06 3049 402
Would you like to learn to print letterpress ?
If the idea of designing, typesetting and printing your own work appeals to you we’ll gladly give you tuition.
Our aim is to demonstrate the letterpress process and encourage anyone interested in graphic design; supplementing their interest in other printing mediums; or wishing to print something for themselves, to "give it a go."
Email: tonyzl@ihug.co.nz or call 06 3049402.
Tools of the Trade shows the range of tools and devices used when setting up type and illustrations for printing.
Also on display are five examples of early printing - the earliest - a page from one of the first books printed in Italy in 1471; a Roman Breviary from 1546, a folio page of a Bible printed in 1562, the first page of the Gutenberg 40-line Bible printed in 1456, and a page of the Mainz Psalter 1462
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Letterpress printing is alive in New Zealand in the hands of those with the historical interest in preserving and demonstrating the craftsmanship involved.There is strong interest from graphic designers, writers, and those wishing to produce their own limited edition work, and where commercial considerations are not a priority.
For more than 35 years the New Zealand Association of Handcraft Printers has supported the interests of more than a hundred craft printers and the Printing Works is a member of this Association.
Great Links !
We collaborate with the National Printing Museum in Upper Hutt, the printing section operated by AHP members at MOTAT in Auckland, The Taranaki Aviation, Transport and Technology Museum, New Plymouth; the Ferrymead Printing Society at Ferrymead Christchurch; the Taranaki Pioneer Village, Stratford, and Homeprint Studio, Feilding.
Another site of letterpress inspiration is www.printingmuseum.org.au located in Penrith, NSW, Australia.
The Printing Works is an exhibit of the Cobblestones Early Settlers' Museum, Main Street (SH2) Greytown and is managed by
Tony King,
email comments and suggestions to: tonyzl@ihug.co.nz
P.O. Box 29 Greytown 5742.
Site first published 30 October 2011
Last update 19 May 2012
We look forward to your visit to the Museum.
www.cobblestonesmuseum.org.nz
A visit to the Printing Works will show you
· d background to the origins of letterpress
· d how letterpress type is set
· d the role of the proofing press
· d printing on a large treadle platen press
· d printing on a table top press
· d the tools of the trade
· d ornaments, borders and illustration blocks
· d examples of original printing dating back 500 years
· d plates produced on the computer for letterpress
Our equipment:
· d Challenge Gordon 15 x 10 treadle-powered platen press (1907) U.S.A.
· d Thompson Gem No 3 13 x 9 treadle powered platen press (1926) UK
· d Adana High Speed No.2 6 x 4 table top platen (1953) UK
· d Challenge Roller Proofing Press (1899) USA
· d Penrose flatbed Proofing press (1930) UK
· d Challenge treadle guillotine (1930) USA
· d Dapag Ticket printing press (1943) UK
· d Roneo stencil duplicator (1920) UK
· d 24 assorted fonts of hand set type
Adana No.2 tabletop platen
To coincide with the Rugby World Cup the PRINTING WORKS printed a limited edition booklet of five New Zealand rugby poems written by Ernest L Eyre between 1907 and 1923. They reflect the passion, trials and tribulations of the game of rugby - echoed a century later with the same sentiment. The edition was of 50 copies and were bought by rugby enthusiasts in the Wairarapa, libraries, universities, the New Zealand Poetry Archive and limited- edition collectors.
"For the All Blacks were the heroes of that land of wondrous fame
They had overrun the Empire and they made New Zealand's name
When I gaze into the fire I can see the clever band
Juggling with the tricky leather in my Rugby Football Land"
Thompson Gem No.3 platen
Printing Made Easy by Adana - the presses and technique of letterpress
Turn your sound on now
click this link:
http://www.youblisher.com/p/213311-Printing-Made-Easy-by-ADANA/
- Sweep your mouse across the page to turn them or use the centre <<>>
- Lower right icons: Print, Download, Speaker off.
- Lower left icon - magnify
- Click (Esc) to rejoin our site
Challenge Gordon Platen
For you to enjoy !
From the USA - continuing a tradition
of wood type poster printing.
CLICK-A-LINK
SEARCH: CTRL-F
Type is set letter-by-letter by hand into a composing stick which is set to the line length required. A fast compositor can set 1600 characters an hour. After the job is printed the type is distributed ("dissed") back into the typecase.
The Printing Works Gallery
This Challenge Galley Proofing Press was built in Chicago in 1899. Type or illustration blocks are set on the flat bed of the press, inked with a hand roller, and a sheet of paper placed over the type. The 40kg 'rolling pin' is moved along the bed to make the print. Proofing is to identify errors before the job is moved to another press. The press can be used for short- run posters.
The Challenge Gordon hand-fed platen press from Chicago is dated 1907 and is the featured press in the Printing Works. It prints an area of 15 x 10 inches and about 500 copies an hour can be printed - providing the printer treadles the press continuously. The press weighs 1 tonne and is of a style very popular with 'jobbing printers' for more than a century worldwide. In addition to printing, it can be used for die cutting, creasing, and perforating.
Alongside the press is the type cabinet containing type in 26 different faces and sizes.
The furniture cabinet stores wood and metal pieces cut to various lengths of line that may be selected for type setting. Lengths about 2 to 5mm thick are called 'reglet'. Furniture is also placed to surround the type when it is being locked up in the printing chase
The layout of the typecase reflects the frequency letters are used when setting in the English language. The 'top ten' most frequently used letters s a o t i n e d h and r are clustered in an 'arc' identical to the object of the typewriter and computer keyboard. As letterpress typesetting requires the actual pieces of type, more of these letters must be bought, hence the largest space for the letter 'e'. The capitals are in alphabetical order except for U and J which did not enter the alphabet until the early 17th century. V and I were the letters used until the change. To have included them in the layout at that time would have created 'chaos' amongst proficient compositors automatically selecting the letter O to find it had shifted to the next row as J had been injected in sequence.
A Challenge foot-operated guillotine with a 60cm cutting width and capable of cutting up to 4cm thick. On the 'bench' of the guillotine is an Adana Horizontal Quarto flatbed press that prints up to 9 x 5 inches. In can be hand inked or automatically and is popular with creative printers.
The Adana High-Speed No 2 table top platen press prints an area of 6 x 4 inches and mimics the features of much larger presses. Ideal for invitations, labels, letterhead, small booklets, the press is used by visitors to print a souvenir of their visit to the Printing Works.
A DAPAG rotary hand printing press. Built in England in 1943 this press uses I shaped type which slots into grooves on a printing drum. The type is inked from the metal ink roller on the top, via a rubber roller. Cards or paper are hand fed at a rate of 50 per minute.
RONEO stencil Duplicator No.2 from England - the workhorse for copy duplicating - along with its competitor Gestetner - in millions of businesses, before the advent of the photo-copier in the 1970's.
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The ten most used letters in the English language, is offered as a souvenir to visitors. To set type in letterpress we must buy more letters of each of these otherwise we will be very limited in what we can set at one time. The seven lines of text contain 63 letter 'e' . How many on this website ? CTRL-F and enter simply e. It will not count the letter in an image.
