Oldstock Press · Sheet No. 298 · Cotton rag 640gsm
Letterpress
A working specimen from a two-person shop in Bradbury Yard, where a 1911 Heidelberg still bites paper hard enough to read with your thumbs.
Impression specimens
Every line below was pulled on the same stock at a different packing height. Click any specimen to hear the press kiss it again.
Hollow
Ink sits on the surface. The sheet stays flat, the counters stay open, and the whole line reads as a whisper across the room.
Bite
Two extra sheets of packing and the type drives a shadowed trench into the rag. Held at a raking light the serifs throw their own dusk.
Blind
No ink at all. The word exists only as topography — visible when the sheet is turned, invisible when it is scanned.
Salvage
Registered by eye on a second pass. The half-millimetre of drift is not a fault; it is the reason anyone commissions the job.
Handset Cotton rag Rubber-based ink Deckle trimmed
Ink & stock ledger
| Stock | Weight | Ink | Impression | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bradbury Rag | 640 gsm | Ash Black | 2.4 pt | 82% |
| Yard Cream | 450 gsm | Iron Blue | 1.6 pt | 54% |
| Mill Ends | 300 gsm | Kiln Red | 1.1 pt | 37% |
| Duplex Grey | 820 gsm | None (blind) | 3.1 pt | 9% |
| Flax Handmade | 560 gsm | Ash Black | 2.0 pt | 66% |
- Press
- Heidelberg Windmill, 1911
- Max sheet
- 380 × 260 mm
- Turnaround
- Nine working days
- Minimum
- 50 sheets, one colour
Make-ready
- Lock the forme
Type, furniture and quoins are squared in the chase until a lifted forme holds its own weight without a single loose slug.
- Pack the platen
Tissue is added a leaf at a time. One sheet of onionskin is roughly a quarter point of extra bite — the difference between a whisper and a trench.
- Ink up
Rubber-based ink is worked on the disc for four minutes. Too thin and the counters fill; too thick and the deckle picks up a halo.
- Pull a proof
The first six sheets are waste. We read them against the window, marking any letter standing shy of its neighbours.
- Tear the deckle
Edges are torn against a bevelled steel rule, wet, by hand. No two sheets in a run share a silhouette.