An Introduction to Letterpress Printing with Mr Smith
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- čas přidán 18. 05. 2014
- Typography artist Kelvyn Laurence Smith gives the William Morris Gallery an exclusive behind the scenes tour and introduction to letterpress printing at his workshop in Kennington, London. This film was first screened at the William Morris Gallery on Thursday 15 May 2014 as part of the Museums at Night fesitval.
I'm a timed served compositor. 1966-1971. During my journey in I work in jobbing house, newspaper, magazine houses all around the UK. This brought back great memories for me. Thank you.
I worked as a Letterpress Compositor between 1976 to 1982 and these days enjoy Photoshop and Corel Draw. Really enjoyed your film.
Hello please can you help me please
Hi. I served my compositor's apprenticeship from 1963 to 1968 and specialised on the Monotype typesetting machine. Eventually ended up typesetting Russian Cyrillic at Cambridge University Press. Opened up Clarendon Press in 1981 and still operating right through the years of filmsetting, litho, digital. Now gone back to letterpress, thermo, foil blocking, embossing under the title Cotswold Letterpress.
Love it still!
Hello please help me how to machine compos in latterpress
Well done Mr. Smith. Not a breath wasted, comprehensive.
Whoa, "upper" and "lower case" is just the _location_ , where letters are kept, ingenious!
This is such a fantastic, under-appreciated video. Great pacing, super informative with fun facts scattered about throughout. Keep up the great work Mr. Smith, your appreciation for this artform is inspirational!
I love this man the best tutorial on letterpress printing ever THANK YOU for posting terminologly 100% acurate
One of the best videos on letterpress on CZcams!
Why is it so so so beautiful?? Im in love with it..
Very interesting! Being a typographer myself I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video!
This was so awesome to watch! Thank you!
MAAAAAAAN I got so excited! I must try this.
Thanks man.
Great video! You did an excellent job of explaining everything.
I was an Apprentice Letterpress Machine Manager...6 years...50 years ago...
A good job ,I like it so much
I have ever worked this job when I was young at least for 5 years.
What a beautiful piece of art!
An excellent explanation of my job between 1976 to 1983.
Love this! Thank you!!! I would love to meet you one day!!!
Fascinating work!
Thanks great video. :) Lotts of learning, hope OK to share with students.
Funny I guess. I started print in school in 84, my teacher was Ron Smith. I learned what you are doing from him and will be running a Miller letter press until my company finds someone else. Good luck on that, so I will be in this for awhile. I just saw "MR. Smith "while I was looking for anything close to what they wanted me to do on you tube. It is a skill that very few know, mainly because we are dying off. And or got smart and left the industry . I get calls from other shops that may want me, old equipment and old people is the norm. At 53 I am one of the youngest in our shop.No new blood coming in .I can make more at Taco Bell or 7-11 these days.I used to be lead on a 77" 7 color, now,mailing and bindery. I may run a GTO or a duplicator when busy but the industry changed.
Brings back soo many memories
Great attention to detail..very nice video
Excellent excellent clip, thank you! Unless the Goldings were configured differently than the ubiquitous C&P, for operator safety, should the flywheel not be turning CCW, ie: AWAY from the operator at 0:08 and 1:30?
I love this
Thank you 😊
"Art & Socialism" - sounds like a talk I'd love to have attended! Cool letterpress stuff, too!
Yes mate!!!!!!!!!!!
First rate tour of letterpress printing! We are fortunate to have the world's largest collection of type here in Two Rivers at the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. If you're a letterpress and typography fan, you might also enjoy our Dec 2019 interview with the assistant director. czcams.com/video/AK0Psb54rE4/video.html
I have to watch this for a school assignment
My neighbor died recently. Told me he had worked for Vandercook downtown Chicago.
my dream job ....
This is really neat, but I have to ask.. how are you still in business? I can't imagine that the prices you need to charge for your work fly these days by people who couldn't tell the difference between any inkjet printer?
Meseria mea ,am fost tipograf.
Impresores, reporten cómo están. Desde Nicaragua. Pandemia y políticos nos han diezmado, ahora ya se ve un poco la Esperanza, muchos quedaron atrás, unos q.e.p.d. nosotros que Dios no ayude. Saludos. 6 diic. 2021
🙂
I didn’t see a Ludlow, I’m guessing he had one?
As a general comment on the subject, not solely on this video, I’ve noticed that the current generation of artisan letterpress printers tend to work the wrong way round. Page heads were always positioned towards the compositor and lock-up was at the foot and furthest away. This was different when dealing with, a 16-page where the heads were in the centre of two chases and the lock up was closest to the compositor. Again, l’ve opened case of display type where characters were arranged horizontally from the letter “A” at the rear right-hand edge of the case and all the low usage, extraneous sorts are at the front edge of the case. It makes life harder. We were always taught to work upside down and left to right because it was a more logical way to deal with typematter that was, by its inherent nature, the wrong way round.
Yes I started as a compositor in 1951 and it drives me mad when they show pages and comp sticks the wrong way round. You would think as they are so interested in the process they would talk to someone who worked in the trade.
I STARTED as a YTS age 14 in 86 ... and it did last too long buy it stuck with me .. I think about it all the time.... I have risograph machines, could I ask - how to get started with the basics if Im to be abe to print letterpress solo .. midlife creative art cricis
Sans serif simply means without serifs. There are lots and lots of designs. It doesn’t mean grotesque. There is a type design known as Grotesque. The forme (correct spelling) is the complete item due to be printed and placed in the press. It is held in the chase. (But its still a chase.)
Furniture is not spacing as such, it can be metal or wood and is used to fill the space between the forme (note: with its “leading”) and the chase and locked into position by quoins.
Printers used to use the word “em” (a 12 point em) when measuring dimensions rather than pica even though an “em” is strictly speaking a space width equal to the depth and therefore variable depending on type size. An “en” is half the width of an “em”.)
The “stone” has been metal for a very long time but still called the stone.
The cylinder press shown was used for proofing rather than actual production.
The next machine shown is of the kind known as a “platen”.
The antimony (don’t know how to spell it) in the lead mixture expands when cooled and overcomes the shrinkage of lead (and the tin added for hardness) when it cools.
The quoins he uses are modern “Cornerstone” quoins. There are a number of designs and devises which expand to tighten the forme in the chase, including two separate metal wedges pulled across each other (called hemple or hempel) to create expansion and even a simple wooden wedge system.
The ink roller which moves from side to side is called the reciprocating roller. This is usually in contact the the ink duct which supplies a constant flow of replacement ink as the ink is used.
The “packing” sheets are normally placed under the forme which includes small pieces of packing material placed under certain areas of the forme or even under individual letters. Sometimes the packing can be under the tympan (forgotten how to spell that as well). That’s all part of the process called “make-ready” and in letterpress printing can take hours to complete.
Gujarati
Offside that the last print makes some unnecessary political statement this is a very nice video.