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The Print Studio & Press Arrival

It’s been a hectic few weeks here at Thin Ice Press. A few weeks ago room D/L/051 begun its transformation into the print studio and, with all the old desks removed, the space was revealed to be great.

D/L/051
D/L/051 at the University of York…soon to be The Print Studio
team in the studio
The team in D/L/051 at the University of York

We’ve had many deliveries within the last few days. The first of these included type cabinets from urbanfox letterpress, some wooden type, spacers, ink…and a large yellow hazardous materials cabinet that is currently sitting in the English department reception!

Deliveries
Deliveries piling up…I think everyone in the department reception will be as excited to have these items set up in the print studio as we are!

Last Friday lunchtime the room continued its transformation as new flooring was fitted. This development came just in time for the delivery of our three iron presses from The Logan Press, and also of the historic Gent press from Scarborough Museums.

work begins
Work begins to transform D/L/051 into The Print Studio
Flooring
The flooring is down
new door
Shiny new door…soon to be changed to ‘The Print Studio’

The arrival of the presses today was one of the most exciting moments of the project so far. We were able to see how the iron presses we bought in June had been beautifully restored by The Logan Press and it was fascinating to watch all the parts come together to build the three presses you can see in the photos below.

Eagle
The eagle (a counterweight) from our Colombian press

Columbian 1

Columbian 2

Columbian 3

Columbian assembled
Our 1838 Columbian press assembled by The Logan Press
Albion
1847 tabletop Albion
Albion assembled
The smaller Albion seemed a lot easier to assemble in comparison to the Columbian
Arab 1
Arab presses were designed to be supplied in parts (like flat-pack furniture of today)

Arab 2

dsc_0041

Arab assembled
1926 Arab
the presses
1838 Columbian, 1847 tabletop Albion and a 1926 Arab joining our Adana 8×5 at Thin Ice Press (Adana not pictured)

The hectic day of deliveries continued with the kind loan of the early 18th-century wooden common press, once owned by York printer Thomas Gent, from Scarborough Museums. The arrival of this press means we are now able measure the final pieces of the Gent press and complete the plans of our own reproduction wooden common press.

Gent press
The disassembled 18th-century wooden common press

These recent developments mean we can now move on with many of our plans, from printing to common press construction, but it has also offered up a moment to reflect on what we have achieved in a relatively short space of time. There is still a lot to do, move into the studio and tweaks to be made on all the presses, but we are now custodians of a historic press and room D/L/051 is home to a (soon to be) working printing studio!

A big thanks to The Logan Press for your work today and to Scarborough Museums for loaning us the Gent press. I’d also like thank everyone who has subscribed to this blog and those following our journey on Instagram and Twitter – it is so wonderful to see your engagement and enthusiasm towards our project.

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The Logan Press

On Saturday 16th June we traveled from York to the East Midlands for a visit to The Logan Press. As one of the busiest commercial letterpress printers and restores in the UK, it seemed like a fitting place for a research and buying trip.

The Team
The team (from left to right): Seth, JT, Lizzy, Helen, Megan and Carla

We toured the company from the main studio to a separate warehouse that, as you can see from the photos, was packed floor to ceiling with a massive collection of presses.

The Logan Press - collection of presses

There was the chance to see the beautiful restoration work on Arab platen presses up-close, with several in stock and at different stages of the restoration process. Patrick Roe told us about their work and the different projects The Logan Press has worked on, including an 1880’s Cropper that made an appearance in the film Sherlock Holmes II and many other projects. Some of their restoration work can be seen on the very punnily titled ‘heidelblog’!

The Logan Press - Arab before restoration

The Logan Press - Arab after restoration

The site is also home to the Fine Book Bindery who offer specialist hand bookbinding for private presses, publishers and the printing trade. Housing the two trades under one roof meant we could see how specialist book production works from letterpress printing to bespoke bookbinding – the result is a truly beautiful product.

Patrick Roe of The Logan Press and Giles Hovendon of AMR Press have also recently merged their two companies. On the website they describe how, having worked closely together in the past, the merge will allow the continued partnership of experience and equipment. It is also because they have ‘decided on a new strategy to ensure their ability to provide these indispensable services in the future.’ Therefore it feels brilliant to be delving into this world of letterpress, to not only support it but to also create and develop our own press within it.

As we viewed the different machines it became clear how amazing it would be to have presses from different eras at Thin Ice. Our vision had quickly evolved from the common press and a small table top Adana, to charting the history of print through our presses, but avoiding the dangerous Heidelberg’s of course – no chopped fingers at the Thin Ice Press!

The Logan Press - Heidelberg

We purchased a beautiful table top Albion, a later Arab Crown Folio with a solid flywheel (that will be restored by The Logan Press) and a large Colombian (complete with the eagle that is also currently waiting to be restored). So, by end of July, we hope to have one platen and two hand presses restored and ready at the Thin Ice Press.

By having presses instead of ‘a press’ our studio will be able to chart the evolution of letterpress history – from the original Gent common press alongside our reproduction, to The Columbian, the Albion and finally the Arab. We hope this will also really help to fulfill our aims in teaching an outreach, as more presses offer up more practical ways to engage with history and different applications and techniques.

The Logan Press - table top Albion Printing Press

Having three presses on the way has certainly made us more aware of how far we have to go to establish our press room and made our endeavor seem  more real than it did a few days ago but still remains, above all, a very exciting development in the Thin Ice Press project. We would like to say a massive thank you to Patrick, Guy and Fran at The Logan Press for helping turn our vision of the Thin Ice Press into a reality…and also for the ride to lunch!

 

Check out http://www.theloganpress.co.uk

The Logan Press, 21d Orchard Road, Finedon, Northants. NN9 5JG United Kingdom

Telephone +44 (0) 1933 681961   Email patrick@theloganpress.co.uk