Home Made Letter Press

I am currently a MA Visual Communication student at the University for the Creative Arts (based at the Canterbury campus, UK). For one of my projects, I wanted to see if I could combine digital fabrication technologies to create portable printing presses based on transitional designs.

In the development of the final press, I ended up making two different types: a quick press and a large one. There are material lists for both, with downloads for any 3D printable file and laser cuttable files. I have tried to create parts lists for each press as well, but some of the pieces were created from scrap material.

For my first design, I planned on making type blocks that slide into a jig that holds them. The type blocks were 3D printed in PLA. All the glyphs were 25mm high, with the top and bottom being longer than each letter. These are designed to slip into a laser-cut jig, or could be stuck with double-sided tape to a block.

The initial printing press I designed is to hold the printing block for a test print to see if these would work.

To try to improve the impression I was getting with the 3D printed typeblock, I ordered a mini Hand Held Printmaking Baren to help with creating the test prints. This made a world of difference. I initially tested it with stamp printing ink and got some amazing results.

Link to Zip folder with type block for 3D printing and DXF of laser cut gig.

At the beginning of the project, I had the opportunity to visit the printing room at the University for the Creative Arts, Epsom campus.

Unfortunately, it was a day when the technician was not available, so I wasn't able to print anything. However, I did take the time to explore the room and familiarise myself with the workings of some of the printing presses.

This experience has further inspired me to take on trying to design my own printing press in a similar style.

At this point in the development of the press, I had seen the Swiss proofing press at the UCA Epson, and I have a much better idea of how it works.

I started developing the plan for the press. I began creating the rough design, and these are my initial sketches.

I found an old Delta 3D printer that I could use for parts.

This printer is built around the use of 20:20 rail, which is common for 3D printers and I thought this would be a good fit for developing the press.

After looking at the 3D printer, had all the 20:20 rails and some linear rails that would be perfect for making the sliding motion.

I started using the elements from the 3D printer I had to create the bed of the initial design. I used Fusion 360 to create to digital model.

This allowed me to create technical drawings of my design that I could then use as a cut list to take to the workshop to cut all my materials down.

I wanted to stick with the top-feeding design of the Swiss proofing press. Using the 20:20 rails, I would be able to change the height of the printing bed and the loading top shelf.

Most of the parts came from Amazon or had lying around at home.

There is an attached document for all the parts with links to where to find them.

Once the designs were finalised, I went to the wood and metal workshop at Uni. Using the 20:20 rail that I had harvested from the 3D printer, we were able to use the automatic bandsaw to cut it. Additionally, we also used some scrap 18 mm MDF to create the print beds.

This was the most complicated part of the press to design and took the longest time to create. This was because the press needed to be strong and able to roll, as well as apply pressure to the roller. For the press to work the best, it would need to be able to control the pressure that was applied to the roller. I honestly didn’t know which way to curate it, so I thought that I might connect it using a bar. However, this was going to end up costing way too much, so I initially started working with 3mm MDF, which is going to give it the strongest rigidity without being too much work. This also gave me the option to layer things up so I can stack my designs on top of each other, allowing me to build the different layers. I needed to add in the 3D printed mechanical parts, including alignment, bearings, springs, and pressures created by 8mm threaded bolts.

Once any three-think had been laser cut from the Fusion 360 file, I was able to start assembling the initial design for the print bed. The images shown are the layering that went into creating the side. Again, treating that correctly allowed us to have 3D-printed inserted bearings with pressure applied by 8-millimeter bolts. There were a bunch of 3D-printed elements that we used to create, needing to be more user-friendly and make it easier to hold these together and connected to the linear grows. I was able to get treeless 3D printer that I disassembled, these attached really well. There are a few alignment issues with bolts not aligned correctly with the 3D models, but they're able to slide easily. The springs were able to add the compression that I needed to put them to do to push the bearings back up to the folks that we would use to compress these to change how much pressure works being pushed on the roller that was then going to create the print.

The images below you of the press being created. The ones below show the initial Gantry being connected, which then had the roller attached. The one on the right shows everything all attached, ready to make my first test print.

From the first print, I used laser rubber. This is a laser rubber that is specially designed to work in the laser without giving off poisonous gases. I initially used Helvetica, one of my favourite fonts. So, I laid this out in different thicknesses at 18-point size. Amazingly, this turned out really well, and I was able to get all the way down to 18 points thin and quite happily all the way up to Condensed Black. As soon as I started to get some good prints as shown in the images, I was super excited. 

Now that I know the press works, the next thing to do is to start making some letterforms.

I took the initial letter forms I tested using 3D printing and scaled them down to a much smaller size. Then using some mountboard, I created some guides so I could lay them in straight, or at least somewhat straight. 

The final outcome of the press works well, and I am planning on creating more typefaces and trying to use different forms of digital fabrication techniques to create more typefaces and print some A5 prints. The dream is to create a much larger one that can be used to make posters.