I contacted Ramco, a company based here in San Dimas, California. So I contacted Tarheel, who were wonderful and helpful, but they only cast composition rollers once a month and were on the other side of the United States. I was still undecided as I had heard composition rollers were better inkers even though they didn't last as long. Ted had stressed to me that I should get rubber rollers, as composition rollers, made from glue and glycerin, would get sticky and messy in the Los Angeles environment.
Meanwhile, I priced recovering the rollers. After the oil cut through most of the grime, I used white vinegar to clean off the linseed oil and what little bits of rust there were. The smells reminded me a lot of an oil painting class I took back in high school. I used linseed oil to clean off the bulk of the dirt, grime, and whatever else was on the machine, with some mineral spirits here and there to help things along.
According to Ted, the press had just sat on a man's shelf for over 30 years, unused. So we got the press home, and I took to the task of cleaning the thing off.
#Letterpress studio how to
He drove the letterpress down with him from northern California to LA where we met and he showed us how to take it apart and put it back together, gave us tips on how to clean it and what type of rollers to get, and helped us load the press into my car. Ted, who I bought it from, couldn't have been nicer and more helpful. After telling myself a million times over that it was a good buy and that I wasn't just flushing a whole lot of money down the drain, I decided to buy the press. While scouring Briarpress, I happened upon an ad for a Golding Official 6x9 in mint, albeit a bit dirty, condition, complete except for the rollers, which needed to be recovered. After reading the "First Press Suggestions" on Don Black's website, I became deadset on getting anything but a Kelsey (which are pretty easy to find on eBay), with a preference for either a Sigwalt or a Golding Official. So I began looking into tabletop platen presses, which are unfortunately, due to their rarity and relative ease of moving, seem to be more expensive than their much larger, motorized cousins (but, on the bright side, they easily fit into an apartment and require comparatively little moving/shipping cost). Which is a bit of a dilemma since many letterpresses, especially the motorized ones, weigh too much and take too much effort to move, store, and maintain for what I envision my business doing. Essential to starting a letterpress studio is an actual letterpress.
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