Beautifully photographed but a bit off the mark. Love Alan May’s press. Too bad not much of Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing” 1683/84 represented here. We know exactly how the Folios were printed and this is not shown here, with the exception the common press and the use of ink balls (definitely not dabs - see Moxon). Printers ink is formulated with boiled linseed and carbon black (soot) NOT oak galls (used for writing ink). Paper is formed one sheet at a time on a paper mould using linen fiber. The type was hand set in a composing stick, and while the Monotype is useful it had no place here- or at least a stick could have been used to begin with. The illustrations were copper plate prints. Tail pieces were often carved in fruitwoods having very tight grain and could be very delicately cut. Nicely filmed but not historically accurate. Stan Nelson, printing historian PS: I am able to replicate all of these skills except for paper making. It’s very doable.
Hello Stan, just to respond to your email, the piece that we printed was never intended to be a facsimile of the first folio or it's processes. Using Oak galls to make the ink was interesting, Shakespeare would have used ink made from galls to write, we wondered if it was possible to make printing ink from them, and with the help of Michael at Hawthorn we found a way, which was brilliant. Of course, the paper was made for the folio in sheet form but the paper made in Somerset was, like using a Monotype caster a nod to modernity and it's relationship to Elizabethan process. We did set some of the type by hand using a composing stick, but it wasn't filmed sadly. One thing I understand about letterpress is that what ever you do or say there is always a printer somewhere who who do things differently, it's an (almost) 600 year old craft and there is always something new to learn.
What Isaac Jaggard wouldn't have given for a Monotype caster with a Welliver pneumatic interface! He'd have had the First Folio printed in a month rather than the two years it took him.
What a wonderful, tactile process. Such a joy watching Nick at work.
❤ Top quality history documentary please more
Thank you for taking me back down to where all ladders start. In the foul rag and bone shop.
Beautifully photographed but a bit off the mark. Love Alan May’s press. Too bad not much of Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing” 1683/84 represented here. We know exactly how the Folios were printed and this is not shown here, with the exception the common press and the use of ink balls (definitely not dabs - see Moxon). Printers ink is formulated with boiled linseed and carbon black (soot) NOT oak galls (used for writing ink). Paper is formed one sheet at a time on a paper mould using linen fiber. The type was hand set in a composing stick, and while the Monotype is useful it had no place here- or at least a stick could have been used to begin with. The illustrations were copper plate prints. Tail pieces were often carved in fruitwoods having very tight grain and could be very delicately cut. Nicely filmed but not historically accurate.
Stan Nelson, printing historian
PS: I am able to replicate all of these skills except for paper making. It’s very doable.
Hello Stan, just to respond to your email, the piece that we printed was never intended to be a facsimile of the first folio or it's processes. Using Oak galls to make the ink was interesting, Shakespeare would have used ink made from galls to write, we wondered if it was possible to make printing ink from them, and with the help of Michael at Hawthorn we found a way, which was brilliant. Of course, the paper was made for the folio in sheet form but the paper made in Somerset was, like using a Monotype caster a nod to modernity and it's relationship to Elizabethan process. We did set some of the type by hand using a composing stick, but it wasn't filmed sadly.
One thing I understand about letterpress is that what ever you do or say there is always a printer somewhere who who do things differently, it's an (almost) 600 year old craft and there is always something new to learn.
Instructive and fascinating; thank you.
Brilliant
enchanting
The perfect word
What Isaac Jaggard wouldn't have given for a Monotype caster with a Welliver pneumatic interface! He'd have had the First Folio printed in a month rather than the two years it took him.