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View Full Version : Block printing with modern tools and floor covering?



Stephen Tashiro
10-01-2010, 11:31 PM
Linoleum Block Printing is an established art form, but do the practitioners of the general craft of block printing still use genuine linoleum? -or have they switched to modern floor coverings? Do they use modern motorized tools or lasers to cut the blocks?

Caspar Hauser
10-02-2010, 5:22 AM
Linoleum Block Printing is an established art form, but do the practitioners of the general craft of block printing still use genuine linoleum? -or have they switched to modern floor coverings? Do they use modern motorized tools or lasers to cut the blocks?

Genuine Linoleum and hand tools. Vinyl floor covering doesn't cut well, it also seems to be a layered inconsistent product with a 'bumpy' surface. Linoleum is flat and consistent through its thickness with only a hessian backing. Lino can also be etched, vinyl can't, or at least I don't know how.

'Block printing' would also encompass a range of media and techniques to include wood cuts, which are made in the side grain of wood or plywood dependent on the scale or quality of mark required, and wood engraving which is performed with special tools on the polished end grain of Boxwood blocks (other woods with similar properties can also be used).

I have no experience of cutting lasers, I am assuming that they are not inexpensive, so Lasers and Lino (an inexpensive technique) would seem unlikely to reside in the same garret, they don't in mine.

I have tried various cutters in a variable speed flexible tool and found the results and process to be unsatisfactory, but maybe that's just me. However if you have a different technique/approach I'm all ears.

If you are looking for a substitute for genuine linoleum (a very nice floor covering by the way, quite 'green') you might perhaps try Azek, if made warm on an inking hotplate or other such method as you would Lino, it may well become workable with Lino/wood tools. I have yet to try this.

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