Lyme Bay Press have started to produce type high letterpress printing blocks using deep relief KF152 Photopolymer plates alongside plates currently available and will enable many printers, who still use hand set type to incorporate imagery and non standard fonts into their own designs.

After much research they have sourced a water/chemical resistant MDF board which they have produced to the correct height to enable them to mount our standard deep relief KF152 plates. Designed to come up to 0.918”, type high, they will drop straight into your chase and you will be ready to begin printing.

There are perfect for someone who has just bought a small press Like an Adana or Excelsior 5x8 and are getting to grips with printing or don't possess a Lyme bay Chase Base. 

For more information about ordering and prices visit: lymebaypress.co.uk/type-high-blocks

Hurray now in the UK!

For those of you familiar with the Boxcar Base in USA you'll be pleased to know that an equivalent system called the Chase Base is now available in the UK and Europe from Lyme Bay Press. Also if you already have a Deep Relief Boxcar Base they also supply KF 1.52mm polymer plates you've be longing for!

“Manufactured from high quality aluminium & ground flat by precision engineers, anodised matt black then laser etched, this is the ultimate photopolymer plate mounting system.

The white relief exposes the details of the high contrast registration grid for a long lasting surface resistant to press chemicals, allowing easy plate mounting year after year. The 10mm grid is easily visible through all foil backed polymer plates allowing small adjustments after mounting for easy alignment. The hard anodise coating is durable & easy to keep clean.

Our plates come with a sticky mounting membrane already applied & specially designed to give high tack to the polymer plate side & low tack to the Chase Base side for easy repositioning & easy plate removal after printing.

Simply replace the plastic carrier sheet on the sticky surface & store your plate in a ziplock bag to use again time after time. If the membrane gets dirty or spoiled, additional sheets can be purchased economically from our store.”LBP

Full support will be offered in getting you up and printing using the base plus there will be a forum on the website too soon. They also stock Vanson ink plus plenty of new developments in the pipeline.

I recommend contacting LBP to check which base is more suited to your press, they are a friendly bunch and will happily go though all the technicalities.

lymebaypress.com

Emma Case Photography

The lovely, bubbly Emma asked me to print some CD cases for her photography, she loved the idea of them printed on brown craft card as she's eco friendly like me, we really struggled to find Cd cases in craft card in the UK so we ended getting some from STUMPTOWN PRINTERS. I did look into getting some made but this was going to be small print run of a 100 so not feasible unless I wanted a 1000. I say a small print run :) big to me!! 3 colours my biggest print run yet!
Emma already had designed her artwork but I tweaked it a little changing a few of the fonts, especially the 'BABIES' as the thin stroke could cause some problems in inking and the plate making. The 16 gauge type high mounted plates came from Centurion and for those who are unsure about the making and sending of files I've outline my process below...

Logo drawn to size in Illustrator CYMK and fonts outlined, a thin red stroke was added 6mm away from the edge of the type, to allow room to grip the plate in the making process. The logo was then copied 3 times and the corresponding colours left on each plate, all the outlined type was then changed to 100% black. The thin red stroke was left red to show where I wanted my plates to be cut, doing it this way would help with registration as all the blocks would be exactly the same size. allowing all the furniture in my forme to remain and I just changed the plate.

1. Make sure you are working in CYMK and not RGB so your black is 100% black
2. Make your artwork the required size, charges may occur if you want it made bigger or smaller
3. Give clear instructions with your design and speak to your plate maker, they are very helpul and won't bite :)
4. If possible use a program like Illustrator, InDesign, CorelDRAW etc for type, it is possible to send files done in Photshop but make sure your files are 1200dpi.
5. Make sure all your files are outlined or rasterized.
6. Thin lines - keep them to a min of 2 pt
7. PDF is the best format to save and send your files, other formats are accepted such as jpegs, eps, tiff

Printing on my Kelsey went like a dream apart from I had to add tape to my roller bearers and file down the corners of my plates as the rollers were catching, though this was down to the block being slightly higher than type-high. I didn't even need to alter anything for registration I'll post the results here as soon as Emma has received her parcel ;) she was a dream to work with and check out her fantastic retro work, just love the Photo Booth idea, sooo much fun ;-) http://emmacasephotography.blogspot.com/

Magnesium & Polymer plate suppliers in the UK

UPDATE NEW POLYMER PLATE SUPPLIERS

LYME BAY PRESS Suppliers of the Chase Base and the much sort after KF152 deep relief polymer plates. The UK equivalent to the American Boxcar Base.

Magnesium - For letterpress you will require 16 gauge or 16g plates which are commonly known in the trade as "ZINCOS".

Centurion Graphics - Preston, Lancashire - supply type high mounted zincos & polymer plates

Metallic Elephant - Coulchester, Essex - zincos, can be mounted type-high

Blingford Graphics - Walsall, West Midlands - supply type high mounted zincos
Park Graphics - Manchester - zincos and polymer plates

JFM Plates - Manchester - zincos and polymer plates

BOXCAR PRESS  - US - suppliers of polymer plates and Boxcar base

If anyone can recommend some additions to this list the please leave a comment