I am a hoarder. Ask my wife. But the junk I have collected over quite a long

time can now be finally displayed to the world, thanks to this website!

 

Items I will add to this page are all related to the printing trade and

are things I have used at some time during my 45 years as a printer.

 

Comments are welcome. Nice ones preferably.

 

 

 

 

This is an old Funditor cylinder proofing press which we use to print letterpress posters.

The type is laid up on the bed of the press, hand inked, the paper is carefully laid onto the type and

wound under the impression roller.

Our attempts have been quite successful, now that I have got the impression cylinder correctly packed.

 

If any one has any history on these presses, I would be grateful if you contact me.

 

 

 

 

Wood type. Hard to come by these days, production stopped in the 1970s.

We have a limited range of wood type at GTO Printers, but we do

have access to more if required for a special project.

 

 

 

The little hokey pokey ice cream print was completed and made a lovely

bookmark. I took one of the Adanas to the local Santa parade with

a tray of type and let people handset their name and print it on to

a bookmark! It's easy being a printer!

 

 

 

I have an Adana 8x5 benchtop press, which goes on outings as a

working letterpress demonstration. They are really a hobby press, but

when set up right a bloke can get very acceptable results off them.

 

 

 

My wife saw this old Remington Rand No16 being tossed out,

and decided it was the type of junk I would treasure. And I do!

 

 

 

 

 

Letraset was popular in the 1970s and 80s, and we all had dozens of sheets

and a well thumbed catalogue. The letters were rubbed off the sheet onto the

artwork, letter by letter. It was time consuming, but for a few words, it was

quicker than getting them typeset out. Before computers of course!

Regal Stationery, just up the road from me still has a few sheets for sale. He said

he'd sell them at bargain prices. I wonder if the 3 year guarantee would still apply.

 

 

 

 

Here's a little gadget I purchased in the early 1980s to produce

larger type, to go with my IBM golfball typesetter.

The Varigraph had rulers with outline letters engraved into them,

which you drew around with the stylis, and the letter was redrawn

on a piece of paper above it. After drawing out the word, you had

to ink fill each letter manually, so there was a lot of outline lettering used!

It worked ok, but was very slow, and was soon put aside when

photosetting became easily available. I have lost the rulers with the

fonts unfortunately, if you know where I might get one or two, please

let me know. The Varigraph and the font rulers seem to be pretty rare

now, I was lucky to get mine back after about twenty years.

 

 

 

Here is a piece of hot metal type, with the Lord's Prayer cast on it.

It is tiny, and shows the high quality and technical precision of type casting

equipment, working to 1/10,000" measurements. These fully mechanical

machines were capable of this type of casting in the 1920s, well before

computers were around.

 

 

 

I have been keeping my eye out for model presses. This is my

collection so far. The near one is based on Leonardo DaVinci's

drawings for a press. It was never commercially built, but it had features

way ahead of it's time. The middle one is from the Gutenberg Museum,

and is a model of what Mr Gutenberg's first press may have looked like.

The third one would be a later press, maybe 1700s, with a few more

advanced ideas built in to it.

 

If you hear of where I might get others, please let me know,

other than Ebay. Done that, been there!

 

 

 

Remember when cut ‘n paste meant dealing with blades and the aroma of solvent based gum?

The gum in this tin is still soft enough to use, and strong enough for some serious glue sniffing!

What a great label!

 

 

 

 

This nifty little gauge finds the centre of a line of type for you. When paste up was done by hand,

something like this helped save time in your layout.

 

 

I can't find my waxer, only the instruction booklet, and spare rubber wheels.

Another way of sticking down artwork was to roll a thin coating of wax on the

back, with one of these. This was the baby of the range. There is an element inside

keeping the wax liquid. My one was a Caslon product.

 

 

If you want to see how printing ink is made, take a look at this video.