Woodcut & Linocut Printmaking Registration Jig

(Click "2 More Images" above to see them all while reading this introduction.)

What is Registration?

Ever looked at a comic book and noticed some colors sticking outside the lines a little bit?

The problem: registration. Put simply, registration means making sure the paper and the inked surface meet exactly the same way with each new layer of ink in a multi-color print job. The comic book image and old Russian matchboxes above show what misregistration looks like. They were made using offset printing, while my jig is for woodcut and linocut printing, but the problem is the same: the paper and the inked plate are not properly lined up. You can see it in my horribly misaligned robot, which is a woodcut that was made without using my jig.

Before a woodcut (or linocut—from here on out, just assume I mean both ifI say one of them) artist starts printing a multi-color project they have to to work out how they're going to line everything up repeatedly. If they don't have access to a press with a registration system built in, this might be tricky.

There are good systems out there. Some printmakers use Ternes Burton registration pins and stripping tabs, which seem to work well but also seem to have some limitations (I haven’t tried them yet). Other artists make pencil marks on the back of their paper and on the plate or the surface it’s attached to, then line them up carefully, but this method is kind of slow and—in my experience at least—too easy to mess up. I’ve also tried some other simple methods found online (search Youtube and you’ll find a lot of good demonstrations), but many of them left too much opportunity for me to mess up if I was not paying perfect attention when I set them up, was rushing while printing, or had variations in the size or shape of the paper I was using.

I have no problem admitting that all of these shortcomings are mostly due to operator error. I don't have a dedicated studio where I can leave things set up, and (more importantly) I know myself. At some point I'm going to get distracted or rushed and a step is going to get skipped or something is going to be flipped. Perhaps I'm going to have to move everything to another room while I take on some other task. In other words, if a system's main source of precision is the user, it's probably not the right system for me. I also have a habit of thinking bigger than the relatively small prints that I usually see people using these methods for.

More about registration (mostly about offset printing): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_registrati...

About the examples:

Compare the 1970s Russian matchbox design warning you to stay off ice near warm water discharges (https://www.flickr.com/photos/thepaperdepository/34780050414) with nearly perfect registration of all colors with another (https://www.flickr.com/photos/thepaperdepository/34780048044) that includes part of the same image but with one color misregistered. (The word in the corner is “Help!”). [Though the person who posted these is claiming copyright by selecting “all rights reserved,” they cannot assert ownership when merely reproducing work that is not copyrighted and was created by someone else.]

Old comic books are a great place to find examples of misregistration. This image is from Hit Comics #49 (Nov. 1947). Note how the red ink layer was printed higher than it was supposed to be. The hairy guy’s right shin and toes aren’t supposed to be yellow, for example, and Kid Eternity (yes, that’s his name) intended to shout all-red words. (Image is in the public domain. https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=34377).

(Click "6 More Images" above to see them all while reading this step.)

I love printmaking. I'd love to have a nice press and a studio, but I don't and probably never will. That doesn't mean I don't want to produce quality prints. I found myself making a multi-color print earlier this year and realized I didn't have any confidence that I could achieve proper registration. So I built myself some confidence out of plywood and a couple pencil pieces whittled down to precisely 9/32 of an inch in diameter. (Prototype #1, which was used for the 3-color American Eel print.)

Here's what I was thinking...

I need a reliable system, as simple and cheap as possible, that

• Locks the block in place securely
• Stays locked when a block is removed and does not move when a different block is put in
• Forces the block and paper to meet in precisely the same place every time
• Does not depend on lining anything up by eye
• Does not require me to make minuscule adjustments or to transfer measurements from the jig to the paper in any way (even a tiny error could be visible on a detailed print)
• Prevents the paper from accidentally touching the inked block before it’s lined up
• Works with various paper sizes without having to make a new system for each print
• Can be picked up and moved without disassembly and without danger of altering the setup
• Is easy to store when not in use
• Is solid and inflexible against the downward pressure required to print
• Works for transferring the image from the key block (black, usually) to other blocks for multi-block prints*
• Has few/no parts that stick up and get bumped by the brayer (ink roller) while inking the block
• Is easy to clean up if there is stray ink that could be transferred to the paper where I don’t want it
• Is strong enough to hold the block while carving it if doing reduction prints (which are explained later with the Robot image)

Though it is not perfect (yet), my jig does fulfill most of these goals.

It is simple to build using plywood and other wood that’s probably already laying around, a small amount of simple hardware, and common tools (would have been easier if I had a drill press and table saw, though). The pins that register each successive sheet of paper do not move and are the same for every print, regardless of the paper size or type. It is very sturdy. It stands on edge for storage.

...and here is the system in a nutshell:

You use a standard 3-hole punch to put holes in your paper or, much more reliably, semi-rigid plastic. I'm calling this the tab (thanks, Ternes Burton). You attach this to the back of your paper with tape (again, thanks, TB). The jig itself has pins/pegs spaced at exactly the same distance as the holes made by the punch, and the pins are exactly the same diameter as the holes. Since the punch makes the same-sized holes with the same spacing every time, the pins don’t move and the holes in the tabs are exactly the same diameter as the pins, there's a very good chance the paper will go down exactly where you want it almost every time.

(Compare Robot #1 and Robot #4 to see how even with the jig things can go off track. I have no idea how it got misaligned, but it did. Still, it's better than the robot that was printed using pencil marks on the block and the paper. I swear I did not intentionally print the black so much higher than it was supposed to be just to make my case for the jig. I really thought I had it lined up!

*Explaining key blocks is outside the scope of this Instructable, but this one by JavierL90 covers it very well. Where it has you lift the key image to the side, with my jig you'd keep it on the pins and lift it toward the top while switching blocks.

(Click "2 More Images" above to see them all while reading this step.)

Materials:

• For the main surface and base: a square/rectangular piece of plywood that’s decently smooth on top (size is up to you—mine happened to be 20 inches square). At least half an inch thick for rigidity (but you can stack a couple pieces). Plywood is better than regular wood as it’s less likely to warp with humidity, water, time, etc.
• 2 more pieces of wood a few inches wide (could be the same plywood) for the top and left edges
• Dowel or metal rod with an outside diameter EXACTLY the same as the holes your punch makes (mine are 9/32”)
• A right angle that you can drill a hole in (a small framing square, part of a picture frame, right angle clamping blocks, or make your own). I think various other shapes might work better for some jobs. Maybe a right angle is not ideal. Experiment. Go wild. Report back.
• A small bolt/screw, a couple washers, and a nut or knob or some sort to tighten and loosen them
• Some more screws to attach the side and top pieces
• Some sort of finish (polyurethane seems like a good choice) to make it easier to clean up errant ink
• Some kind of plastic you can punch holes in. I have used the plastic covers of spiral notebooks, plastic folders, plastic food containers that restaurants put takeout orders in, and others. As long as it won’t tear or stretch with repeated uses and is thin enough to punch without damaging your punch, it should work.

Tools:

• A 3-hole punch
• Circular saw and/or router (I used both ¼” and ½” straight router bits.)
• Drill and a bit the same size as your hole punch’s holes (a drill press would be ideal), plus other (smaller) bits for clean holes
• Some other bits for drilling pilot holes for screws if you want to
• Sandpaper
• Various clamps
• Tubing cutter if using metal for the pins
• Various screwdrivers, pencil, measuring devices, clamps, etc.

(Click "3 More Images" above to see them all while reading this step.)

The step before the first step:

Measure the holes your paper punch makes. You can’t get the right dowel/rod or drill bit until you know this measurement.

The first step:

Cut a slot in your main piece of plywood. It has to be wide enough for the bolt/screw to fit through and move back and forth without binding. The slot should not extend all the way to either corner (see Fig. 1) . I made mine 45°, but it might not be the best choice. Time will tell how it works out for me. It may depend on the sizes of prints you make. Later versions of this jig might have 2 (or more?) slots to accommodate more print sizes and shapes.

You can see in my photos that I used a router (not as well as I intended*) to make the slot. I was going to just cut 2-3 passes with my circular saw but all of my batteries died and my corded circular saw started throwing sparks and smoking the last time I used it. I switched to my router, but since the smallest straight bit I have is 1/4-inch, the slot is wider than it needs to be for the screw I was planning to use. It works just fine.

I chose to make a channel on the underside so the washer and screw head could move without protruding. You could achieve the same outcome by making a second piece of plywood identical to the first one but with a wider slot cut through it (a little wider than your washer). That was my original plan.

Cut the side and top pieces to fit the main board. I used a thicker material for the top piece as the wood I have been using for woodcuts (real wood sometimes, or MDF as in the American Eel and Robot prints) is ½” thick. I was going to make 2 identical ¼” thick top pieces, so I could stack them for thicker blocks and use just one for thinner blocks (such as linoleum), but that will have to wait for the next version of this jig.

*It started raining right as I was about to step out into the sunshine to build this on a nice big work surface. I ended up having to do all my cutting, drilling and routing under the big umbrella of the table on my back porch. Water was dripping on my back but I managed to keep the wood and tools dry. It meant I made some bad cuts due to insufficiently supported materials and I sometimes rushed due to a weather-induced bad attitude.

Before attaching the top piece, it’s time to drill the holes for the pins.

This was surprisingly tricky because they have to line up PERFECTLY with the holes your 3-hole punch makes, and ideally they will be perfectly vertical. I actually had to make this piece 3 times to get them just right. Even 1/16 or 1/32 of an inch too close together or too far apart is enough to make this whole thing not work, and if they’re leaning slightly that is almost the same as being spaced incorrectly. This is where a drill press would have helped.

Here’s how I got the holes in the right places:

I marked roughly where I wanted the left-most hole and drilled it. I put a pin into that hole and slid a 3-hole-punched tab onto it, using that to mark the second and third holes. I did NOT run my drill bits through the holes in the plastic tab, because I didn’t want to accidentally enlarge them.

I drilled each hole (including the one in the previous paragraph with 4 bits to avoid tearing out the top or bottom layers of the plywood (3/32, 11/64, ¼ and 9/32). I also clamped scrap boards over and under the piece to make sure the bits wouldn’t walk off target and/or tear out the edges of the hole. (The scrap piece on top in the first photo is a previous attempt where I messed up one of the holes. It wasn't the only scrap piece created that way.)

Note of lesson learned: I recommend putting the holes about an inch back from the edge of the top piece. This gives room for the tabs to be well-taped to the paper without them reaching over the inked area of the block. On my original prototype, I had them too far back and wasted some paper. I overcompensated on this second prototype.

I will either be adding a second row of holes a little further back from the edge or making the top piece (or at least the pins part of it) movable.

The current pin placement is not an issue if the block to be printed does not have any part of the image that is carved close to the edge. Look at my American Eel print, where the border is only about a quarter of an inch from the edge: it would require a work around with this setup. The Robot, on the other hand, worked fine because I remembered to leave lots of space on the block. For blocks with the image close to the edge I could also deal with it by placing another piece of wood as a spacer between the pins and the print block. But that’s annoying.

If using dowels, cut them with a saw.

If using metal rods or tubes, use an appropriate cutter. I cut my brass tubing with a tubing cutter. (Big surprise!)

How long you make them is up to you. All I can say is that you don’t want them too tall, but you also don’t want them too short. How tall/short is too tall/short is a matter of preference.

I will also say that if they really do fit your punched holes snugly, you definitely do not need to make them tall as a safety measure (because you're worried about the tab slipping up and off of them during printing).

But a word of warning: If the tabs are very snug on the pins, the pins must fit very tightly into the holes in the wood. If they are not, they will pull out when you lift the tabs each time you remove a piece of paper after printing. This is not a theoretical concern. It happened to me many times while using prototype #1 (the one with whittled pencils as pins).

Once the top piece is drilled to perfection and the pins are ready, you can attach it to the main plywood with screws. I considered gluing it, but knew I’d probably be adjusting and improving the jig and might want to replace it.

(Click "9 More Images" above to see them all while reading this step.)

Make the “square” that will hold your printing blocks in place and drill a hole for the bolt/screw. I'm not sure what to call it. Claw? Grabber thing? I'll stick with square for now.

This piece doesn’t have to be perfect—it just has to be able to push the blocks against the side and top pieces of the jig. (I wasted time pressing a little bit of my 9/32” tubing into the hole. This was totally unnecessary, and as a bonus it doesn't even look good.)

I tested the whole idea with a small square that already had a hole in it (presumably for hanging it on a nail in your shop). It’s too big for most printing blocks and I didn’t want to cut down a perfectly good tool, but you could do that (don't let anyone tell you you're a monster). You could also find a sturdy picture frame and cut off a corner. And you can experiment with different shapes as needed or as the inspiration strikes.

I put a wide fender washer on the screw underneath the jig and another above, then the “square.”

I made the one in the photos out of a scrap of 1/4” plywood. It is a little thin for use with a ½” printing block, but that’s better than it being too thick and getting in the way of the brayer (ink roller) or baren (the glass circle seen in step 9 that I use to press the paper down into the ink).

Test the fit and function of this assembly. Does it slide easily? Does it lock down securely when tightened? If so, great! Now take it off again.

The pictures above are of the sanded but still unfinished jig. I'll add photos of it with finish eventually.

Sand:

Once you are sure that everything fits and works properly, sand all wood surfaces to remove slivers that could poke a hole in your paper during printing or come off and get stuck in wet ink.

Finish:

You do not want the main surface or the slot on the underside to be too smooth, or the printing block might slip and slide under pressure. You do, however, want the jig to be sealed so you can clean up errant ink without damaging the wood—particularly if you are using water-based inks. It’s almost inevitable that you will get ink where you don’t want it. It’s part of printing, but it is nice to be able to clean it up without too much trouble. (See the inking mask tip later in this project for one way to keep things clean.)

I have not yet sealed or finished this one. The aforementioned rain got in the way and I’m sure I will be changing a few things.) When I do, I’ll probably use a semi-gloss polyurethane to make it easy to clean without being too slippery.

(Click "9 More Images" above to see them all while reading this step.)

Make tabs as mentioned elsewhere by finding plastic that is tough enough that it won't stretch or tear, but that is not so stiff it won't flex without cracking. Look for notebooks with plastic covers or plastic folders, envelopes, etc. If you are a drummer with old drum heads sitting around, they ought to be perfect.

Punch the holes with a 3-hole paper punch. Use at least two of the three holes when printing. One hole will not be enough as it will allow the paper to pivot.

To attach tabs to paper:

1. Place as many tabs on the pins as you will need for the edition of prints. I was making 4 prints, so I put 4 tabs on the pins.
2. Slide a piece of paper under the top tab and tape them together. Do not let the tab or the tape overlap the image to be printed.
3. Lift the taped paper/tab unit off the pins and repeat the process until all tabs are joined with paper. Remove them all and set aside to prepare for inking the block.

Note: For small prints like this, taping only on the back is probably sufficiently stable. For larger prints, or ones with more colors that will be pushed onto and pulled off of the pins many times, use more tape and/or tape on the front as well.

(For this print I just used some scrap paper. Ordinarily it would be sized appropriately for the block and I would worry more about making sure it was lined up so the image would be straight and centered.)

Why use tabs instead of just punching holes in the paper itself?

Because paper tears easily and the holes grow each time you push them onto the pins, making them looser each time and potentially ruining your perfect registration.

Option: Single-hole Tabs

If you prefer, you can make tabs with just one hole. You'll have to use at least two of them on every piece of paper to get stability. If you go this route a 3-hole punch is not necessary and the spacing of your pins is less critical.

Making an Inking Mask

If you get ink on parts of the block that are not meant to print (such as the open area outside the border of the robot print), or on the jig itself, you can end up getting marks in areas of the image you want empty. On one of the 4 robots I forgot to move the mask aside and got black ink outside the image.

The mask is simply a piece of transparent plastic (I used printable transparencies meant for overhead projectors) with a window cut out for the image portion of the block. I set it on top of the block (while it was locked into the jig) and drew around the image area with a permanent marker, then cut that out. I also snipped the transparency from the holes to the edge to make it easier to get on and off repeatedly. To keep it from blowing away or sliding around on the table I put a piece of blue tape on the edge to act as a hinge.

If you have larger sheets of plastic you can make an inking mask that covers the block and the jig itself.

Bonus Transparency Tip:

After drawing the image on the block, make a rough copy of it on something transparent. If an ink layer completely obscures the original drawing you can use this to remind you what is what. You can make it as detailed or vague as you want. I knew I'd be able to remember what was yellow, so I only marked the black and red.

(Click "9 More Images" above to see them all while reading this step.)

The robot print I made is what's called a reduction woodcut. That means you print a color then carve out everywhere that you want that color to remain. You print another color, carve again, print again, and so on. They usually start with the lightest color and end with the darkest. Some artists do reductions with dozens of layers of ink. With my jig and this small, soft block I was able to carve without removing it from the jig. That might not always work as the pressure of carving could slowly move or loosen the locked "square."

This robot is an extremely simple example of reduction printing. Ludicrously simple. To see what the technique can really do, check out https://meshartgallery.com/blogs/news/the-rise-of-color-reduction-prints and then look for more prints by artists like Siemen Dijkstra, Grieje Postma, William H. Hays, Dave Lefner, and many others. Follow #reductionwoodcut on Instagram to find more artists working in this format. (I was going to start linking accounts, but there are too many great ones. Just go browse the hashtag and follow some artists.)

Note: My block was not perfectly square, so the left edge is not meeting the side fence. This does not matter as long as it is locked in tightly and will not move. Test yours by trying to make it move.

Another Note: If using separate blocks for each color (like I did for the American Eel print shown earlier), simply make sure they are all identical in size and shape. Lock the first one into the jig, print it, then remove it and insert the next one WITHOUT MOVING THE "SQUARE."

How the robot was made:

1. I drew the robot on the block (MDF because it's soft and easy to carve quickly) in pencil (but forgot to draw it in reverse so the printed robots would face the right way),
2. then carved away everything that I wanted to remain white (because it would never receive any ink).
3. Before inking, I locked the block into the jig,
4. then inked the block with yellow ink and printed it using a glass baren to provide solid and consistent pressure. (Re-ink the block before putting down each piece of paper).
   Note: See the inking mask tip at the end of step 8.)
5. While the ink dried on the 4 pieces of paper, I carved away everything that would be yellow in the final image.
6. Once the ink was dry I printed the red ink layer.
7. I carved away everything that was going to stay red.
8. Finally, I printed the black layer.

Even with the jig, one of my 4 prints was slightly off. I don't know what I did or what moved, but it happened. I do know it had to be operator error, since no part of the jig moved. This jig works very well, but it's not magic. There will still be errors. If comic book printers and newspapers with presses costing many thousands of dollars can have registration issues, can a sub-$25 jig hope to eliminate human imperfections? (Hint: no.)

I like this version of the jig. It works well and looks pretty good.

A few ways I plan to rethink or improve the jig's function:

• Trying different types of washers, including rubber, to get better grip in the underside slot and on top. I didn't have problems with anything slipping, but it's easy to imagine that happening.
• Using a bigger knob to make it easier to fully tighten.
• Using a shorter screw/bolt so I don't bump it with the brayer when inking or the baren when printing.
• Experimenting with different shapes for the "square" to see if there are some that hold the block better than others.
• Making the top piece, or at least the portion with the pins, movable to accommodate different blocks, papers, tabs and images.
• Possibly adding another slot or two for use with oddly shaped printing blocks. (See drawing of alternate design with 2 perpendicular slots in step 3 for one possibility.)
• Adding some sort of built-in storage or attachment points for blocks used to position a printing block further from the pins or to get a small or narrow printing block over the slot.
• Adding an arm to hold a camera over the jig for photographing the stages of printing in progress.

I will add more ideas as they occur to me while using the jig.