Letterpress with Laser

[Jiten Patel]

Not sure if this has been posted before - but came across this and thought it was very interesting. Has anyone tried this or similar?

http://www.nycresistor.com/2012/01/21/laser-cut-letterpress/

[Michael Hunter]

Have seen it before, but I don't like paint or ink - I get more on me than on the job.

Looks handy for your cards though - get that quality raised effect in the printing.
Just needs an old mangle and some blankets to get started, so cheap to try out.

[Cherie Irwin]

I've engraved actual letterpress plates with end grain maple print blocks for a letterpress workshop that I took last year. I am restoring a 10 x 15 1906 Chandler & Price Old Style letterpress currently. I plan on engraving polymer plates that I will purchase through Laughing Owl Press. Here's the scoop on their polymer: http://www.laughingowlpress.com/laserpp/ (I'm not affiliated with this company; I just like their methods). They give recommendations on engraving speed and power, but they use an imported laser. I'm not sure what their speeds convert to on my Epilog. Nor do I have any idea what a scan gap is. I was going to post a picture of the work I did with the wood plates, but I can't find one.

I love the idea of doing intaglio printing plates. Engraving (not raster engraving, but engraving as a traditional printing method) is very expensive, much more expensive than letterpress.

[Bill Cunningham]

I did some letterpress plates for a friend several years ago. He was running them on a heidelberg windmill, and he was not to concerned about the engraving depth, just had to have relief.. I used a old expired hard polymer plate that I cooked under the UV light to firm them up before engraving away the background to leave the text standing. I gave him the plates, and he used them, they must have worked or I'm sure I would have heard something from him..

[Andrea Weissenseel]

A while back I tried it with Delrin and Acrylic both worked fine. You have to be careful not to apply to much power and don't engrave to deep otherwise the plates break pretty easy. Unfortunately didn't have anymore time for it

[Bruce Clumpner]

I think the real find in this thread is the link to Briar Press (http://www.briarpress.org/) It looks to be a great source for 1-color graphics originally used in the printing industry. I've been looking for a source like this for a while!

[Mike Null]

Bruce

Good catch. I just bookmarked it.