Letterpress: Media and Maker Commons

 Regular hours: Monday 1 - 5 pm; Tuesday - Friday 10am - 5pm; closed on holidays

Letterpress printing is the old-fashioned way of printing text from hand-set metal and wood type. You set the type by hand, lock it up on the press bed, ink it up by hand, and print onto paper, one by one, using a letterpress printing press. You then clean and re-distribute the type in its type drawer for the next person to use. This is how all text was printed until the 1960’s when offset printing replaced letterpress printing.

Letterpress

Getting started

We are piloting demonstrations and one-on-one appointments for students and faculty with a demonstrated research need or class assignment with a qualified professional.  For classes, we can offer demonstrations for up to 8 people at a time.  This is done due to the physical space limitations around the press.  We can accommodate split sessions where half the class comes for the first hour and the other half for the second hour.  The same one-hour demo is repeated for the second group.  Once you have been through a demonstration, you can book a session for up to 3 hours with a facilitator.  The facilitator will be there a maximum of 2 days a month. These days are not set but change to suit user needs.

To schedule a demonstration or a one-on-one appointment, please contact the Makerspace Librarian Mikael Kriz at mkriz@sfu.ca.

Tools

We have one printing press which is a Challenge cylinder flat-bed proofing press. Estimated manufacture date 1950’s. There is one drawer of wood type and about 20 drawers of metal type. The metal type includes several text weight (12 point) serif faces and one sans serif face. The metal type also includes several display faces (36 point, 48 point, 60 point) used for titling.  We use only water-based oil printing ink.  The press has brayers or rollers to ink up the type along with an inking glass slab to roll out ink.  Spacing material and equipment are used to lock up the type.  We have bond paper 8.5x11 and 11x17. If you wish to print on any other paper, you will need to bring it. Paper cannot be lumpy or have inclusions. Paper also cannot be very thick.

Material and Safety Guidelines

  • Wear closed-toe shoes.
  • Tie back long hair.
  • No hanging bracelets or hoodie ties, nothing dangling.

Examples