Photogravure?

[cyrus]

OK so who does photogravure or photoetching around here? I need advice re: printing presses

Question 1: how can I get a 400lb printing press up three flights of stairs?

Question 2 : will a 400lb printing press fall through my apartment floor and onto my downstair neighbor's head? I'm concernd about the press being damaged.

[David A. Goldfarb]

A few people on hybridphoto.com are doing polymer photogravure. Check out this thread--

http://www.hybridphoto.com/forums/showthread.php?t=458

[Nick_3536]

OK so who does photogravure or photoetching around here? I need advice re: printing presses

Question 1: how can I get a 400lb printing press up three flights of stairs?

Question 2 : will a 400lb printing press fall through my apartment floor and onto my downstair neighbor's head? I'm concernd about the press being damaged.


#1 one step at a time?

#2 are you allowed a water bed? 50gallons of water is about 400lbs I think.

[alec4444]

Oh how cool, I think this is one of the nicest printing methods I know of!! Depending on your building, you can either get a few friends together to help move it upstairs, or perhaps look into a pulley system (from roof) to get it through a window. 400lbs will not go through your floor....even with a 5inch square footprint it should be safe. If there's even a possibility of your floor not taking it, you should be investing your $$$ in a new structure instead of arsing around with a press. :D

I've been considering taking a class on this...we'll see.

--A

[Brian Ellis]

I don't think you need to worry about damaging the press if it falls and hits your downstairs neighbor. His head should adequately cushion the blow so that any damage to the press would be minimal. The real problem is that you'd have to haul the press back up the stairs again.

[Michael Graves]

I don't think you need to worry about damaging the press if it falls and hits your downstairs neighbor. His head should adequately cushion the blow so that any damage to the press would be minimal. The real problem is that you'd have to haul the press back up the stairs again.

You quite clearly don't have the same neighbors I used to have.

[paulr]

my teacher used to make photogravures. he gave it up because it was insanely difficult ... weeks to get a single print. he thought it was just about the most beautiful process he'd used, though.

[Renee Galang]

I've done some photogravure using polymer or "solar plates" and also with transfering the photographic image onto a copper plate then aqua tint it then submerse it into the ferric acid bath. I simply love the prints that I produce from these techniques! Next time I will develop my 11x14 film into positive to use it with solar plate for printing. I like the fact that the print will last for 500 years!

[Terence McDonagh]

If your place is new construction, the floors should be good for 50 lbs/square foot of live load (things that move around such as furniture, etc, not walls, floors, etc.). So, assuming you can spread the load out a bit by placing it on a couple of 2x4's and plywood, you should be fine.

If it is old Hoboken construction (which I'm guessing it is if you're a walk-up), it's probably close to the same capacity as building codes have changed much since the 191x's. But chances are the floors will deflect a lot more, so shimming it will be a pain in the arse.

Not sure how much these things move when operating, but if it's much at all, and if it affects the output's quality, this will be a problem on a residential floor. They just aren't very good at minimizing movement. They're not designed for it.

And yes, I am a licensed structural engineer, but in NY, not NJ.

[RichardRitter]

Paul Taylor of Renaissance Press http://www.renaissancepress.com/ he does Photogravure printing.

[Darryl Baird]

depending on the press, I would disassemble into manageable chunks and re-assemble in its final spot... we did this with two letter-presses that got donated to a local college. It took all day.

I suspect that water beds and pianos are equally heavy, I wouldn't worry too much if the floors were built to conventional standards for multi-level construction.

[Terence McDonagh]

Hoboken is full of buildings from the 1800's and early 1900's, which is prior to the adoption of fairly standardized code loads in the teens. Add to this that a lot of it was "tenement" construction for housing workers, so quality was not the foremost concern. My building is of 1880's construction and has had some questionable renovations over the decades, so the strength of the floor CAN be a serious issue.

[paulr]

If your place is new construction, the floors should be good for 50 lbs/square foot of live load (things that move around such as furniture, etc, not walls, floors, etc.). So, assuming you can spread the load out a bit by placing it on a couple of 2x4's and plywood, you should be fine.

I'm curious about how those load limits are interpreted. Obviously a floor can hold much more than that ... a big guy standing on one foot can exert hundreds of pounds per square foot.

Is it the average load over a certain area that they're talking about?

[cyrus]

Not sure how much these things move when operating, but if it's much at all, and if it affects the output's quality, this will be a problem on a residential floor. They just aren't very good at minimizing movement. They're not designed for it.



Thanks Terence
As you know most of the buildings in this area tend to move - heck my place sways back and forth when a truck passes on the road outside. Perhaps that's why my place doesn't have a single actual 90 degree angle (kinda hard when making shelves)

I suppose as long as the printed press bed is moving in the same proportion to everything else, then all will be OK.

[paulr]

Thanks Terence
As you know most of the buildings in this area tend to move - heck my place sways back and forth when a truck passes on the road outside. Perhaps that's why my place doesn't have a single actual 90 degree angle (kinda hard when making shelves)

Sounds just like my old loft in dumbo on the brooklyn waterfront. a friend helped me hang cabinets. afterwards i was worried that they weren't level. he looked at me like i was nuts and said, 'paul--nothing east of the brooklyn bridge is level.'
couldn't argue with that.

[Terence McDonagh]

I'm curious about how those load limits are interpreted. Obviously a floor can hold much more than that ... a big guy standing on one foot can exert hundreds of pounds per square foot.

Is it the average load over a certain area that they're talking about?

Typically the floors are designed for the distributed load with the caveat that point loads need to be evaluated separately by qualified persons. Most codes avoid a proscriptive language like that.

When we check for point loads we evaluate the actual loads in the structure, and the member stresses that result. A beam or floor joist can support higher point loads towards its ends than it can in the middle, so it's much more dependent on the load's location relative to supports.

[Terence McDonagh]

Add to the general sloping of older buildings that most of Hoboken is formerly swamp, and more heavily loaded walls settle deeper, and it gets even worse. I looked at one building where the stairs were at such an angle that you HAD to hold onto the railing. The windows had been replaced with smaller ones that fit the parallelogram-shaped openings. I'm sure the old ones could not have been opened or closed.

[Robert Hughes]

A piano weighs about 400 pounds, but a letterpress can weigh a ton. My recommendation is to find some ground level industrial space for a studio - perhaps you can go in with a letterpress printer (lots of them in the NY area) to split studio costs.

[cyrus]

A piano weighs about 400 pounds, but a letterpress can weigh a ton. My recommendation is to find some ground level industrial space for a studio - perhaps you can go in with a letterpress printer (lots of them in the NY area) to split studio costs.


Oh no this isn't a letter press - it is a benchtop etching press. There are several models - I haven't decided which to get yet - but will probably go with the Conrad 18 with the extra large top roller. Weight: just under 400lbs with an aluminum bed. I'll have to build a table for it so I guess I'll make it extra wide to spread out the weight. if two grown people standing right next to each other don't crash through my floor, nor should this press (he said foolishly...)

[paulr]

I'll have to build a table for it ...

or you could just put it on the piano.

[alec4444]

Question 2 : will a 400lb printing press fall through my apartment floor and onto my downstair neighbor's head? I'm concernd about the press being damaged.

Oh, I should add that I have one of those fridge-style wine cellars (Vinoteque) that is quite heavy when empty. It's been about 3/4 full (something like 300+ bottles of wine) and it's still in my apartment. This building had a gut-renovation in the 80s when "half-assed" was ass enough. No problems yet. 400lb should be no problem...even on a steel table.

--A

[Kirk Gittings]

David Morrish is the most knowledgeable guy that I know of on the process. He and I went to graduate school together.

http://www.swgc.mun.ca/~dmorrish/

[Ron Marshall]

Hire piano movers, your back will thank you for the rest of your life.

Two heavy people weigh 400 lb.

[Michael Mutmansky]

David Morrish and Marlene MacCallum have written the best book in recent years on the photogravure process. It's well illustrated, and the information is reasonably correct and useful for actually doing gravure prints. That can't necessarily be said of some of the other books out there. There's apparently a lot of incorrect information and procedures detailed in some of the older books.

However, gravure is a very physical process. You can read about it all you want, but there comes a point where you have to actually do it, to start to get an understanding of how it works. For that there's nothing better than having a knowledgeable, experienced person to guide you along, because a bad habit formed at the beginning can hold you back tremendously.

I love the physicality of the printing process; inking plates and running them through the press. Doing it right is a long detailed process, but it is entirely satisfying for those who enjoy being physically attached to the process at a level much higher than even traditional silver gelatin or most of the alternative processes.


---Michael

[cyrus]

However, gravure is a very physical process. You can read about it all you want, but there comes a point where you have to actually do it, to start to get an understanding of how it works. For that there's nothing better than having a knowledgeable, experienced person to guide you along, because a bad habit formed at the beginning can hold you back tremendously.


Yeah that's why I took a workshop on copper plate photogravure, and I am already somewhat familiar with intaglio printing from a few courses at the School of Visual Arts.

Incidentally, for all of you people worried about the demise of photo paper, this may be an interesting way to go. You'll still need film to make a negative, and chemicals to develop it and lith film to make a positive - but no printing paper is involved. (if you use digital negs then you won't need any of that!)

Once you have a positive, you basically expose it on to a sheet of sensitized emulsion in a UV lightbox, stick the emulsion onto a copper plate, then dip the copper plate into progressively weaker solutions of ferric chloride so it can etch the hightlights/shadows of the image.

Then you ink up the etched plate and run it through the press with a sheet of paper and viola! you get a print.

The "non-toxic" version of this process photopolymer coatings that are washed out with water but does not give smooth tones (pretty close though)

See for example http://www.susanvossgravures.blogspot.com/

[Scott Davis]

I really wouldn't worry about weight of a press - I've got over 1600 books in my library, which is on the 2nd floor of my house. Most of them hardbound. That's enough to crush someone quite permanently if it ever fell over on them. The shelves have stayed where they are for the last five years, and not fallen through to the dining room below. After that, a measly old printing press wouldn't be a problem.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Two heavyish people in bed and the bed could easily be 400 lbs.

[Terence McDonagh]

I agree 400 lbs is probably not an issue, but I have no idea how big these things are.

In my apartment a few blocks from Cyrus', a 200 lb TV deflected the floor enough that I can see a slight tilt in a glass of water on my coffee table.

[cyrus]

I agree 400 lbs is probably not an issue, but I have no idea how big these things are.

In my apartment a few blocks from Cyrus', a 200 lb TV deflected the floor enough that I can see a slight tilt in a glass of water on my coffee table.

Eh, could be the gravitional pull from the tv set mass rather than the weight...

This big (http://www.dickblick.com/zz450/17b/) (actually mine would be a little heavier since I will order the "deluxe" version with a larger roller and steel or alum bed)

[Bill_1856]

What is all the big deal about photogravure? It's just another way to make pictures with a printing press, isn't it?
I have several Paul Strand photogravures from the old "Camera Works" magazine, and they don't look like anything special to me, certainly nothing to compare with a good silver/gelatin print, or even a good inkjet, for that matter.

[Terence McDonagh]

Looks like a torture device.

And my TV manual does actually tell you how to adjust the it based on the direction the screen is facing . . . due to the earths magnetic field on the electrons. I think it's BS, but it is one of the original big screen TV's from the late 80s, early 90s.

[cyrus]

What is all the big deal about photogravure? It's just another way to make pictures with a printing press, isn't it?

Yes - another way. Isn't that wonderful?