Our New Baby!

We purchased a refurbished 1954 Kelsey Model U 5x8 platen press this week! I'm flipping out! The seller did an incredible job and the press is like factory new. It's almost TOO clean and new! It arrived with a nice gift locked into the chase: a Ludwig cast Spofford Press logo block. Very cool!

This is a game changer for us! It's going to be a huge time saver compared to the larger manual etching press. We will have the best of both worlds. Larger prints or projects that need a deep impression will be printed on our etching press, while smaller cards, prints and labels will be printed quickly on the Kelsey!

We've already printed the backs of some of our cards using the Kelsey. Each card now takes about 20 seconds for an impression compared to 1-2 minutes on the etching press!

The chase with our logo block locked up.

The backs of some cards,  printed much quicker then using the etching press! — **The backs of some cards, printed much quicker then using the etching press!**

Cassettes!!

This project was great! I got together again with Paul from Tor Johnson Records and he told me about this killer project. He was releasing a 3 song cassette for one of their bands, Alpha Owl, and he wanted the tapes to have letterpress inserts. I jumped on this!

I designed the front cover image in pen and ink along with the lettering and ink splatter elements. I used Boxcar Press again to have a polymer plate made of the art and design. The design and plates were in and ready by mid-December, but our son was born and I wasn't able to print until February! Excuses excuses...

The inserts were printed in black ink on 100% cotton Domestic Etching paper using our etching press. I was able to achieve a very deep impression in the paper. The red ink was added by hand as was the gold leaf detail on the front design. The end result was sharp!

Paul had the physical cassettes made in red with black lettering and he then hand-typed a small insert for all 100 tapes using an old manual typewriter. The tapes were a huge hit and I am look forward to another project with Paul and everyone at TJR. Here is a link to the cassette!

I made a few variant covers as well for Paul. There is a black on black one as well as a red and gold one.