pile and listening to the noises the press makes so that, if it does do something wrong, you can very quickly figure out why. You can adjust the number of suckers turned on, you can adjust both the height and strength of the blow that comes through the pile, you can adjust the angle of attack of the suckers, you can adjust how fast the pile is driven upwards and, depending on the thickness of the paper, what height it’s picked from. By adjusting one or all of those things, you can get it to pick up one sheet of anything you want – from very thin paper right up to beer-mat board. Have you ever made balsa wood aeroplanes? They’re done on these, that’s how you print and cut out the pieces for the kits – die cutting. (Rummages through a box file on a shelf by the sink) That’s a cutting die and that’s what it does.’
Richard puts a rectangular piece of wood on the bench. A maze of metal blades project up from it, surrounded by small, close-fitting blocks of foam.
‘The important bit is the shaped cutting rule – it’s quite sharp. If you imagine pushing the die into a piece of card, it would tend to stick in it, so the foam is there to push it apart again.’
Are fold-lines made in the same way but with blunt rules?
‘Yes, the folding rules are rounded on top and very slightly lower than the ones which cut. These are made in Bristol. If you ask people, “What’s printed the most?” the bulk would say newspapers or books when, in fact, it’s packaging material. Cereal packets win hands-down. The vast majority of printing around the world is for packaging and along with packaging comes boxes and for those you need die cutting.’*
Rooting through another box, Richard pulls out a block comprising two interlocking parts. A piece of paper or card placed between these matched male and female dies* will emerge embossed – the design pressed through the page. This is blind embossing, he explains, ‘blind’ because it is an inkless process, the pressure of the press moulding the material into a relief – the definition wrought by the light.
The examples of the practice that he proffers have a wonderfully tactile quality. Fingertips trace the contours of a set of Stanley’s bears – stamped into a furrowed map for a Six Inch Record outer, a linear Braille-scape.
I hadn’t considered printing presses being put to work ‘dry’ in this way. The technique seems so elegant. I ask how Richard cleans his type and presses down.
‘White spirit. You can use paraffin but it leaves a slightly oily residue behind.
One thing I run into which irritates the hell out of me is that the whole letterpress printing thing has been taken over by “creative” people, artists and such, some of whom have, what I consider to be, absurd ideas about safety. There are aspects of this which are clearly very unsafe – don’t stick your head in a moving press; don’t take a handful of lead type and eat it, all that sort of thing – but a lot of people, particularly Americans, are terrified of solvents … and you can get inks that, instead of being based on linseed oil, are based on soya oil; you can use cooking oil or soya oil to clean down the machinery afterwards, you can … but it leaves it in the most foul, sticky, gunky condition – if you know what you’re doing, washing a machine up with white spirit, you’ll perhaps use two fluid ounces.’
Can you tell me a bit about your inks?
‘Oh, they’re all boring old linseed oil based inks – you take linseed oil and boil it, then grind pigment into it. I don’t personally do that, there’s an ink making company in South Wales who treat me extremely nicely. I started using them some while ago. I asked them, “Could you possibly, maybe … ?” and they said, “Oh yes, not a problem,” and now they produce six different pots of bespoke colours for about £20 apiece which was about a third of what I’d expected to have to pay. I subsequently looked them up on the internet and they turn out to be Britain’s major ink producers – they’re the people who supply Fleet Street – so what they’re doing piddling around producing pots of obscure colours for me I’ve no idea; but I love them for it.’
Richard crosses over to a shelf, takes a lid off a tin and holds it out. Inside the ink resembles emerald engine grease – sickly, fat and viscous.
‘Here is a tin of green that I bought the other day.’
He up-ends it. Nothing happens.
‘I could probably leave it upside down for an hour before any came out; but some inks are thinner than others. White is a problem.’
He opens a tin of white and lays it sideways on the bench. An ominous bulge begins to form, like angry custard.
‘As you can see, it’s almost able to flow. White is a notoriously difficult colour to work with because white, as a pigment, is lousy and getting enough of it into stuff is very difficult. That’s why, if you ever see white type on black in a magazine it was almost certainly printed black onto white paper rather than the other way round.’
How is white ink made?
‘It’s usually titanium and other stuff – aluminium oxide sometimes, depending upon what you want. Most of the pigments are inorganic chemicals.’
Gone are the days of beetles for blue and suchlike?
‘Um, mostly. (Laughs)
I don’t know what some of the pigments are that they use. Having said that, I bought all these tins of ink for the same price and some had noticeably less in than others because the pigments involved were just that bit more expensive. To this day, a kilogram of blue will cost you more than a kilogram of yellow.’
• • • • •
At this point we pause for more coffee and a Penguin biscuit. Richard sits framed by a stacked tower of drawers that rise floor to skylight, each one partitioned into myriad cells – packed with an unseen type, filed away; dormant words.
Tall, bearded, an L.S. Lowry figure in jumper and gilet, he seems quietly amused by most things – I suppose he’s what people would call diffident, but actually I think it’s another facet of his economy – he’s not one for small talk, reserves judgement. There’s nothing superfluous about him – he’s lean. A spare man.
‘It’s actually quite rare to find someone who is interested. As you’ve probably worked out by now, I’m interested in the technicalities of it. That’s what I get excited about.
The images are great and it’s nice working with people like Stan but it’s the whole business of “How does it work?” that actually excites me.’
Do many people track you down because you work with Stanley?
‘No, thankfully not, somehow it hasn’t happened. He’s very fair about giving me billings on things that I have helped him with but no one seems interested in me, for which I’m eternally grateful. But then, I’ve been to one or two of his launch events and he seems to have a habit of wandering around, not actually telling people who he is.*
Having said fiercely that I’m not an artist, I’m actually a scientist by training. I spent the best part of twenty years working for a publisher in various editorial functions producing maths and science books. I like printing because I can understand how it works – if this bit doesn’t work it’s because that bit isn’t connected to the lever that makes it wiggle … and I can then do something about it. I’m very happy with this lot and if something goes wrong I can fix it.’
Where did you get your presses?
‘Well, the Albion in the corner came from an artist, a genuine artist, who made linocuts and worked at the art school at Banbury. He was getting on to retirement and needed to get rid of it so he advertised in the back of a magazine that I read and I bought it from him.’