Monday, October 24, 2011

Printing in Kentville

As I mentioned, the bookbinding workshop was part of the annual Wayzgoose at Gaspereau Press. They are primarily concerned with printing, of course, and following the workshop there was an open house at their shop. They had several presses functioning and were allowing visitors to print keepsake posters and such.

Wood engraver, George Walker was visiting and helping visitors print a poster using this incredible 1830s Planten press. First of all, we had the poster's text printed on a Vandercook in another room. Then we brought the poster to George and he helped us print Marshall's picture in the middle - from one of George's wood block carvings.

George Walker operating the press

And my finished poster, here on the right, with the wood carving printed in the middle. George Walker is a fabulous wood engraver. There were many of his works on display and he also did an illustrated talk in the evening about printmaking.

They were also helping visitors to make little notebooks with our names on them. First we cast our name in lead. This is done on a Ludlow Type Caster - very old and very big, but very effective machine! I was at the Wayzgoose last year too and they cast my son's name and printed it on little cards. Great idea this year to take it a step farther.

So as you can see, we used that lead cast (a slug, is it called a slug?) on a Parlor Press to print the notebook cover and then it was stitched into a quick pamphlet.

The offset printer was also running, printing off posters for people. They were also making paper during this event. They have a small Hollander beater and they were beating denim jeans to make the pulp and pulling sheets of gorgeous blue paper. At first the entire facility doesn't seem very big, but they had a lot of things happening on Saturday afternoon! Many of their books were on display, including those with George Walker's gorgeous wood engravings. They also had their annual offcut paper sale... so, of course, I stocked up.

6 comments:

V said...

Yeah, it's a slug. Lovely stuff! I wish I had the chance to work more with printing / typesetting, I've only done it a couple of times (naturally excluding all the machine gilding I do at the bookbinding deprtment..).

Lizzie said...

Every time I read the next part of this post, I said "Oh Wow...". So basically, me reading this post:
"Oh wow.... Oh, wow... Oh Wow! Oh Wow oh wow oh wow OH WOW!"

Lucky you - wish I'd been there - it sounds like a whole lot of fun! Great poster and notebook btw.

ronnie said...

so much fabulousness! I'm dying for that press (is it a columbian? I think I spy an eagle up top...)


and that book..... welllllll what can I say - its got my name on it - its calling to me!

MyHandboundBooks said...

Thank you Veterok, a slug!

It was a fun day, Lizzie. Maybe you can track down a Wayzgoose near you - a lot of print shops do this sort of thing.

Thanks Ronnie! but sorry, I'm keeping this one :)

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