Letterpress – Page 23 – Green Chair Press Blog

Year of the Pig Coasters

Year of the Pig Coaster To celebrate the 4th of July, my sister & brother-in-law roast a pig in their backyard and invite lots of friends over for the afternoon. Since I knew I would have lots of coasters left after finishing the Sherlock Holmes design, I made one for them too.

I printed this one in 4 steps. First the pig, then the words & glass, then the border. Finally I die cut the coaster into a 3-1/2″ round. I got the die from Taylor Made Dies in Belmont, CA (415-595-4422). The die cutting was easy — just lock the die into the chasse and cut. To make the die cutting jacket, I bought a piece of sheet metal at the hardware store, taped it to a piece of tympan and put it on the platen. (The jacket is needed so the die doesn’t cut into the platen.)

Coasters

A pile of coaster blanks My friends Cathy & Glen have a bi-annual bash for their bookish friends every winter as part of the Antiquarian Book Fair. For quite some time I’ve been thinking about printing coasters but couldn’t invent a reason. So for Christmas, I gave them an IOU for coasters for their party. Cathy is meant to tell me what they should look like & I’ll design and print them.

I bought coaster blanks from Katz Americas (used to be American Coaster) and they arrived today (I live in California, American Coaster is in NY. I had to buy 1000 coasters for about $18. The shipping was $18! Even with the shipping it’s a great deal). The blanks are 4×4 and about 1/8″ thick — so wonderfully pulpy and chewy! They’ll take a good bite from the letterpress. [You can see the resulting coasters here.]

Wood Type

In addition to a box of random metal type, I also got a box of random wood type as part of my Christmas presents. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with them… there’s an entire alphabet plus all the numbers from 0-9, but they mostly don’t match.

There’s a eyeful resource for wood type — the Hamilton Wood Type Printing Museum with lots of history and pictures.

Metal Type

Last summer I moved my press from the cramped corner of our garage to a newly rented studio. Finally I have room for more equipment — and metal type. While figuring out what faces to buy, I bought a box of random metal type from Ebay. It arrived today and while I have no idea what I’ll do with it (I think it’s meant to hang on the wall), it’s really beautiful.