Linoleum cut

[Laurence Finston]

I've now got quite a few blocks that just need some final touching up before I start printing. However, transferring drawings to the blocks is a good task for doing while drinking a cup of coffee, so I will start yet another.

This one will be a little different. The attached drawings are an illustration for Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (all Copyright (C) 2022 Laurence D. Finston. All Rights Reserved.) The first image is from a (professional) photo of the original pencil drawing. The second is a reversed version, which I made using GIMP. I took that image, exported it from GIMP as an Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) file and included it in a TeX file, but scaled to 80% of it's original size. I also added two rules and 6 crosshairs.

I plan to make three blocks and try to align them when printing. One block will be for the outlines, the second for most of the large splotches and dark sections and the third for the warts (small circles) and for any dark sections that need to be separated from ones that are on the second block. This applies to the mouth.

I'm not sure the alignment (a.k.a. registration) will work, considering the tools, materials and working conditions available to me, but I want to give it a shot, seeing as how perfect registration is the non plus ultra of printmaking.

[Laurence Finston]

Yesterday and the day before, at the offcut bins at the two building supply stores in town, I got lucky (not what you're thinking!). I found this beautiful piece of cabinet-making grade poplar plywood. I suspect the core is fir or some other, cheaper wood. It's 93 x 38.5 x 1.8cm, and I want two pieces, each slightly larger than DIN A3 (42 x 297cm), so it's more than big enough.

I also found some ordinary plywood, 4mm thick. I plan to use this as backing for the linden plywood and linoleum blocks. I will glue them together. I want to screw the blocks to one large piece of the poplar plywood when printing. The poplar plywood is straighter than the laminated boards I bought, which are both somewhat bowed, which is, however, normal.

My idea is to cut the poplar into two identically-sized boards, clamp them together and drill holes for dowels through them both at the same time, so that the holes will certainly match up. I haven't decided what diameter dowels to use yet, I'm considering 1cm. I will use the mobile drill press and screw it to the top board before drilling.

I need to back the linoleum and lindenwood blocks because they are only 5mm thick. I need to countersink the screwheads so they don't interfere with the paper. The plywood backing will allow me to do this and also make it unnecessary for me to repair the holes I made in the linoleum blocks.

In my experience, you can use a woodscrew in a single place in plywood exactly once. If you take it out and try to put it in again, the material will start to abrade. I therefore want to use the sleeves I've had around for decades. They have outside threads for cutting into wood and inside threads for machine screws. I'm not yet sure what size I want to use.

I got my circular saw out of storage for the first time in decades. I've got a table that I can attach the saw to the bottom of, so I can use the latter as a table saw. I can also do this for my router and jigsaw. I'll have to see if I can find all the hardware for the table and also make some space in my kitchen, if I want to start sawing there.

[Laurence Finston]

Since I wanted to make color samples for pastels and also want to use it for printing, I got out the portfolio where I keep my collection of fine papers and got out the charcoal paper I knew was there. I didn't know that it was from the manufacturer Hahnemühle. I probably didn't pay attention to this when I bought it. The photos can't really do justice to them.

It comes in fairly large sheets and I had to tear it (not cut it!) down to size. The largest size I can reproduce is unfortunately DIN A3, so I tore it into sheets smaller than that. Since it has deckle edges, they can't be used for measurements. Instead, one must draw a right angle on the paper with no reference to an edge and work from there. This is a good application for one of the templates I've been making.

I want to try printing using this paper and particularly white on black. I'm not sure either of these things will work, but it's worth a try.

[Laurence Finston]

The tool with the orange handle is a new acquisition, an engraving needle. It has the sharpest point I've ever seen on anything. The handle is just a tube, it's one piece of steel that runs for the entire length. (As Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742--1799) said, all important things are done through tubes.)

The tools next to it are also engraving tools. They were rather inexpensive but very good. I don't know what I would have done without them.

The sharpening stone is a "Belgian chunk". I finally realized that wiping it off after using it is a bad idea: It works best when a sludge builds up on it. The softer matrix dissolves in water and forms a mixture with tiny pieces of garnet, which is what does the sharpening. Now, I just leave the water on and let it evaporate and when I want to use it, I spray it with water and I have plenty of sludge right away.

[Laurence Finston]

Originally Posted by Laurence Finston

My idea is to cut the poplar into two identically-sized boards, clamp them together and drill holes for dowels through them both at the same time, so that the holes will certainly match up.

It would work to sandwich the block and the paper between two slabs of wood aligned with dowels if I wanted to press them. In lieu of a bookbinder's press (1000 € +), I could use clamps. However, this isn't really what I want to do. What I want to do is rub the paper, with a layer or two of paper between it and the rubbing tool. For one thing, I'm trying to see how delicate I can make the lines on the lindenwood block without them breaking and I'm sure that rubbing would be much safer than pressing.

I'm thinking about making a frame and using it instead of the top slab, but I'm not sure about this.

[Laurence Finston]

I marked the first piece of plywood for the backing for the DIN A3 lindenwood block. The two rulers are in centimeters but the set square is in inches. I've never bought one in cm because I really only use the straight edges.

I didn't use a set square with an offset (I can't think of the correct term for this), because I didn't want to assume that the plywood was really rectangular. I used one edge as a reference and derived the other lines from that. Of course, I could have used a set square with an offset for the perpendiculars to that edge, but I didn't.

I use cm, having "gone native" and Europe being very slow to adopt the superior English system. Seriously, outside of a laboratory, I prefer the English system because of the inconvenience of dividing cm and the fact that the English units have sizes that are convenient for things people use, whereas the metric ones have no connection whatsoever to human needs. With pocket calculators, it doesn't make that much difference, however.

I found the table for my hand-held power tools and the legs pretty easily. They are relatively undamaged, notwithstanding the decades-long neglect. To find the hardware I will have to start a seach-and-rescue mission in my basement. I wasn't sure I wanted to get into this, but having reached the "fish or cut bait" stage of this project, I've decided to go ahead. I'm hoping that having my tools out will motivate me to do some needed renovation that I haven't felt like doing.

One reason I continue to post about this topic is that I think wood- and linoleum cuts would be usable for paper models. One thing that bothers me about paper models is that they're normally not printed on fine paper and don't use top quality paints or inks. I believe both of these things are possible with the resources available in your average hobby woodworking shop. I admit that my tool collection is above average, but I believe that any professional shop will represent a bigger financial investment than what I've paid for my tools over the years. In addition, I just like tools and don't have to discuss my expenditures with anyone, so not all of my tools would be strictly speaking necessary to get a given job done.

[Laurence Finston]

I saw this classic car in town today. No indication of what it was. The plate on the radiator had a very worn down fleur-de-lis and an illegible inscription.

Einbecker is good beer. Einbeck lies about halfway between Göttingen and Hannover in Lower Saxony. The brewery goes back to the Middle Ages and is mentioned in the "folk-book" "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks". The prank that takes place in Einbeck isn't very merry: he kills the brewer's dog by throwing it into the mash. The dog's name is "Hops" and the brewer had told him to ... you guessed it. None of the pranks in Till Eulenspiegel are very "merry".

I posted this on the wrong thread, but I guess it doesn't matter.

[Laurence Finston]

Here's a real-life example. I'm not sure where it came from, because I've never bought an empty beer bottle in my life.

[Laurence Finston]

I've hit a snag with cutting the boards I bought down to size: I couldn't find the hardware I need to put my saw table together. Metabo has discontinued the saw table and also the circular saw. You can attach a router or a jigsaw to the table, too, and I have these tools, also from Metabo. I haven't checked whether they've been discontinued, too.

There is a universal saw table from Wolfcraft for about 200 € that would probably work with my circular saw but might not. I'm considering buying it, because it usually doesn't pay to try to find anything in my basement if it doesn't work right away. In addition, if I do find the hardware, I could have my circular saw and my router installed in a table at the same time, which would be very convenient. On the other hand, 200 € is a lot of money and I don't really have room for all these tools standing around.

I measured out the linden plywood for the frog drawing. I've marked intersecting lines to match the crosshairs on the drawing and spots for screws to attach the block to a heavy board to prevent slipping when printing and to allow for placement of the paper as accurately as possible. The screws will have to be countersunk, which won't be a problem, because I will glue the block to a piece of normal cabinet-making grade plywood (probably birch).

I was careful but it might be possible to do more accurate measurements. As it is, I have my doubts about whether good registration would by possible with the means available to me at the present time. I think the only adequate solution would be a construction where one board holds the block and a frame holds the paper and the position of the frame can be adjusted by shifting north-south and east-west and rotating by a few degrees in either direction in the same plane. I don't believe this is possible with just wood and simple fasteners. I would use a frame to hold the paper rather than a board in order to be able to rub the back of the paper. Otherwise, I would need to weight down the board or use clamps or a press.

I wasn't really intending to print from multiple blocks, anyway. I was planning to print outlines or shapes in a single color and hand-color the prints and have gone back to this plan. There's probably no need to make more than a couple of impressions, so I intend to take my time with each one and ink the blocks with a brush rather than a roller.

It was worth thinking about how to achieve good registration, though. Maybe I'll take this idea up again if it ever becomes possible. I've read some things about printing but it seems to me that the authors of books on printing and other art techniques often don't know things that are common knowledge for any hobby woodworker.