If you haven’t been, there’s still time to see this amazing exhibit.  It continues until July 31rst, so drop on by and check it out!  You won’t be disappointed.

Summer is here! Don’t forget the party coasters for your summer shin-dig. These coasters are irreverent and always popular!

Graduation is near! Celebrate your new grad with a “Gold Star” card.

Upcoming Events:
Los Angeles Printers Fair 9/25
Unique LA 12/11-12/12

We certainly use a lot of paper here at HawkGerber…and then we use it again. You see, there are several steps required for many of our designs, especially the ones with more than one color. Once one color has been letterpress printed and the paper has dried, we need to set up the press for another color on the same image. This can get tricky…

Re-gis-ter (rej-uh-ster) noun : correct relation or exact superimposition, as of colors in color printing.

When setting up a second polymer plate to print another color, we must be sure that the registration is very nearly perfect on many of our designs. This can be very challenging since even just having that second color be off by a micron, the image will be poor quality.

This one was printed on a previous test page.

Re-use (ri-yoos) verb : the recovery of materials and products for the same or a similar end use.

While we’d like to claim that every print job is perfectly printed and registered from the start, that’s not always the case. Alright, well it’s never the case. We must run several test pages to measure, eyeball and jerry-rig to ensure proper registration. On a simple design, this may only take a few test print pages. More complex designs can be, well, more complex. Often there are multiple pages wasted as we experiment during the registration process. In order to be economical and ecological, we reuse pages that have been printed on previously. Most of our test pages have been printed on as much as 4-8 times before being tossed.

Re-duce (ri-doos) verb : to bring down to a smaller extent, size, amount, number.

Now thats more like it.

By doing this in conjunction with using environmentally friendly papers, we hope to reduce the amount of paper wasted and the effect on the environment.

The press arrived in good condition, however, it was rusty and needed a lot of cleanup.  We both got pretty dirty oiling the press and getting it in order.  The biggest bane for us was the throw off lever.  For those of you who aren’t obsessed with letterpress printing, the throw off lever is basically the “on/off” switch for the press.  While the press is powered by a flywheel and treadle, it’s the position of the throw off lever that determines whether the machine is going to print or not.  However, once attached, the throw off lever never was working properly.  It would wobble in and out of position and was very difficult to engage.  We tried troubleshooting, but it was never quite right.

Finally, we decided to merely try printing with the new press, regardless of whatever the issue was with the throw off lever.  We also tried to attach a treadle, but that was another headache.  We made an attempt at removing the rod in the back of the press to attach a treadle, but metal caps on the inside of the press were painted in place making us very nervous to try any harder.  So we quickly gave up on the foot treadle and decided to move on.  Our clean machine was oiled and greased and moving much better now.

The rest should be easy, right?   Again, more frustration.  After some cursing and muscle flexing, we finally determined that the rollers we had didn’t fit this press.  It was while struggling with the rollers that we both saw our biggest problem of all–a huge crack in the 2″ thick iron that holds part of the press together.  Clearly, our efforts to move the throw off lever combined with the rust and age of this antique were to blame.  We couldn’t believe that our new press was broken before we’d even had a chance to print!

Thankfully, our hero, Mark Barbour,  executive director of the International Printers Museum, saved the day.  He was able to find a Chandler and Price 8×12 platen press that was in slightly better condition than the Gordon.  This press was built in 1889 and, in spite of the dirt and rust that burdoned it, it’s been in good working order from the beginning.

As it tradition, we gave a name to our newest letterpress.  After much deliberating, we decided that the name “Mulligan” we suited this second chance of a press.

The feedback we received on our cards and products was phenomenal and we look forward to attending again next year.

Check out some photos from this year’s event:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aigalosangeles/sets/72157622189273864/

Among our most recent additions is the Eat, Drink and Be Mary set of coasters.  Hawk generated these images long ago and it’s taken us a little while to determine the best way to present them.  We had originally tried to place the images on a card, but it didn’t feel quite right.  Gerber suggested coasters and here they are!  We are quite pleased with the results and we hope you will be too.

Our “newest” press has been named Tiny Tim (shown in “New But Slightly Used”, below). Tiny Tim arrived with a broken leg, if you will, as one of the arms that holds the ink rollers was broken in shipping. Gerber has been working hard to mend Tiny Tim’s “leg” but is still searching for someone who can weld this break. If we were to make a card for Tiny Tim it would be:

We came up with this illustration a few years ago while making recipe cards and boxes for family members as a gift.  Once we started getting inky with the letterpress, we decided to make a polymer plate of the “lovey oven” and press some recipe cards.   Much to our surprise, this has become our most popular item to date!