A Mighty Wind

The windmill's air pump is a time-proven design, which was later used on the K and S cylinder press series and even the GTO offset presses. Since it's essential to moving paper through the machine, it needs to be in top shape. Here are a few things I learned about when cleaning out the pump on my press.

It's not too hard to remove the pump to work at a bench. I removed the collar from the bottom pivot, and the cover from the bearing where the piston rod meets its crank. Then the whole unit slides off. Obviously the hoses are disconnected before this step. Disassembly follows, and it's pretty straightforward; just remember to keep track of which screws go where, etc. I cleaned off all of the spring steel air valves to ensure things were sealing and opening when they should. The packing on the piston (a felt-y material) was fine on my relatively low-use pump so I didn't mess with it. The most important thing I did was to clean the piston rings and their grooves. Just as in your car engine, the rings need to move freely in order to ride tightly against the cylinder bore, which enables high compression, or air pressure in this case.

Since the rings spring outward when the piston is removed from the pump, one needs to find a way to get the thing back together. As the rings are very springy, one would need three hands to do it without help. I'm sure it's been done with two hands, but I decided to make life easier and borrow an automotive tool idea. For replacing automotive pistons there is a tool which clamps around the piston to hold the rings in as it is slid back into the cylinder bore. Since the piston on the windmill's pump is far larger than that of any car, I measured its diameter and grabbed the next largest hose clamp from the hardware store. With this it was possible to clamp in one ring at a time by its top half, push the piston down until the ring's bottom half was in the cylinder, then loosen the clamp and do the next, and so on. There are three rings in all. I replaced them with the gap in each ring 120 degrees from the others, so the gaps were evenly spaced around the circumference.

Replacing the pump was the trickiest part. Since the bearings have a very precise fit (as do all on the machine) it took some doing to press the piston rod end exactly straight onto the crank.
Once done, I turned the press over slowly to ensure nothing was misaligned. I didn't notice any huge difference in function, but it was good to know that the pump's usual wheeze and snort were indeed normal and not caused by years of gunk or something else wrong.

On a related note: Anyone out there have a service manual for the Heidelberg windmill? I mean the one that Heidelberg service people would have had, with "official" procedures. How about one for the K cylinders, as long as I'm daydreaming? (I have the operator and parts manuals which came with the presses.) In the meantime, as I work on our machines I will follow the fundamental rules: don't break anything, and don't do anything you can't change back. And oil everything.

What's New? Clients!

I guess there's not much to report this week. We have new clients, exciting new projects with new clients, fun conversations with new clients via email and phone since they are from all over. I have to say, in case you haven't already guessed, I love working with new clients. Don't get me wrong, I love our current clients, the ones who got us to where we are today. It's just fun to meet (well not in person) these new clients and see what awesome things they have in store for us. We hope to show you some of their work soon!

The other news around Spark is that Jim and I are finally going to take a vacation. Now don't get all excited like we are off to Tahiti or something. We're just taking next Friday off to go to Omaha for the weekend. We're going to stop in and see our new client, Oxide Design Co., and see what Omaha is all about for a few days. It's our first trip away from our now 4.5 month old daughter, Lucia, so that will be a little hard, but I'm sure we will manage.

Jim is working on his post and we hope to have that up later tonight!

Luxe Designs from Luxe Expressions

We work with designers near and far and were lucky to happen upon Debra Saba from Luxe Expressions. Luxe is based in Atlanta and has a unique design style for her custom invitations. Here is a sneak peek at a few of her designs, but definitely visit her web site to see the rest of her portfolio.

mnfx business cards

If you don't know about Rotor, you'll have to check out their web site. They are a wonderfully creative bunch and we were honored to print this business card for their client, mnfx. And mnfx is pretty awesome in their own right. Some of the projects they've done you will definitely recognize, and it makes you think really hard about how they did it.

mnfx Business Cards
Design: Rotor
Paper: 220# and 110# Crane Lettra in Fluorescent White
Ink: Custom Red
Quantity: 750+
Size: 3.5" x 1.75" approx.
Notes: I think we would print on 220# Lettra every day of the week if we could convince all of our clients to use it at least once. This design called for heavy coverage on the back of the cards and then just a deep impression of their logo on the front of the cards. After printing, they were die cut with a custom die. A label printed at Rotor customized for each mnfx staff member was the finishing touch.

Can we still be friends?

We'd like to apologize to our readers for not sticking with our posting schedule. We've been trying our best, but sometimes a little thing called client work gets in the way! :)

Keep checking back as we will always try to get the posts up on time and according to our schedule. Our goal is to put up good pictures with informative posts, so we'd rather be late and have a decent post than just throw something out there. Thanks for understanding.

- The Spark Team

Envelopes make all the difference

One of my favorite things in the whole world has to be envelopes. Mind you I don't get all that excited about Classic Crest #10 commercial flap envelopes, but even those aren't half-bad. What I love are the unique flap styles and the range of colors and papers that have become increasingly available over the past years as countless others who share my passion for a good envelope pop up across the country.

I'm sure many of these sites aren't new to all of you, but in case you haven't seen one of these, be sure to check them out. When we have smaller jobs we will work through distributors such as these to find a special envelope.

envelopemall.com
paper-papers.com
anchorpaper.com/retail/index.htm
leaderpaper.com
admiralenvelope.com
envelopperinc.com
jampaper.com
paper-source.com
lcipaper.com
actionenvelope.com
miracle-envelope.com
thepapermillstore.com
crafterspaperandsupply.com
paperandmore.com
clearbags.com
source-envelope.com
mrenvelope.com

I haven't worked with every single one of these retailers very often, so I can't personally vouch for their customer service and product availability. We have worked with envelopemall.com, paper-papers.com and Anchor Paper the most, and I would say they have a great selection and fair pricing. I'm sure I'm missing some others, so feel free to recommend any you've found as well.

envelope images from envelopemall.com

School's in, suckas!

Since getting paper to feed through the press reliably is the first hurdle in printing, you need to know when to use rubber suckers. The metal suckers on the sucker bar work surprisingly well for most jobs, but when they can’t pull the sheet up consistently it’s time to use (rubber) suckers. For most presses these will be in various conical shapes, but there are also pneumatically telescoping versions for wavy or rough paper, and other variations. The classic sucker for the Windmill however is a flat rubber disc. When snapped over the metal sucker and into the groove provided, it takes on a conical shape. These are available from numerous sources, perhaps the largest being Rudow, at suckers.com. They advertise “suckers by the zillions!” 19H is the model for the Windmill.

When I first began using suckers I tried the old red rubber ones that came in the tool drawer, but found that they left scuffs on the tail ends of stiff sheets as they whipped under the sucker bar on their way into the press. Happily, the standard 19H suckers come in a white rubber material, so this is no longer an issue.

The downside of rubber suckers is that they can work too well. They seal so well against the paper that the vacuum of the press can suck right through the sheet to the next two or three sheets, depending on the stock. To mitigate this you can open up one or more suckers that are not located over the sheet. This bleeds off enough vacuum that only one sheet is picked up. On a recent job that I ran at over 4000 impressions/hr, with a fairly hard and heavy stock, it still required three extra suckers open for the four that were over the sheet. Without bleeding off all that extra vacuum, it still picked up doubles and triples. I’ve found that 220 lb Lettra works very consistently with one extra sucker open, with separation blast up all the way and pile height at its highest, or one click down.

Since it’s good to rule out variables when troubleshooting, you want to make sure that you aren’t losing any vacuum or blast between the pump and the air openings. I added small hose clamps (Jubilee clamps to UK visitors) where the hoses meet their fittings, as the sag of the hoses had pulled their ends into a shape which didn’t seal perfectly anymore. It’s also good to clean out the air holes in the sucker bar, as they may well be half-closed with decades of anti-offset powder and oil mist. Find the largest drill bit that will fit, and spin it into the crud by hand. It augers out the stuff nicely, and then you will have all the vacuum possible. Our cylinder had plenty of this as it had previously been in a large offset shop, and additionally the suckers weren’t all aligned evenly or to their vacuum holes on the bar. Which leads to another lesson with these old machines: never assume that anything on the press is adjusted correctly.

Jeff Gordon designs his way into HOW

I mean the other Jeff Gordon. You know, the owner of J.D. Gordon Advertising in Sioux City, Iowa! He and his talented team of designers came up with a great self-promotion piece that we were lucky enough to be a part of. Spark printed the brown jacket that held their cool little brochure.

Back in the Day Cherry Blossom Buffet

As we were setting up our Stationery Loft here at Spark over the past week, I ran across some of the invitations I designed when we first started doing custom stationery for private clients in Minneapolis. One that stuck out was my very first foray into the delightful world of cherry blossoms. Although the cherry blossom illustrations have evolved some since this first iteration, it was fun to see where they started. These are different than our more recent cherry blossoms, if for no other reason, because we printed this set digitally. They turned out surprisingly well especially with the beautiful Stardream papers we used.

I actually remember this project quite well even though I did this more than four years ago, in large part because the couple was so nice to work with. They had a small beach wedding in Florida that we did a custom announcement for as well, and then these invitations were to their wedding reception at a quaint French restaurant in Minneapolis.


Here are some other details about the project:
Stardream Serpentine for the main invite, reply card and reply envelope, Stardream Ruby for the paper band with a blind embossed cherry blossom trio, Stardream Kunzite for the directions card. It's too bad we can't find extras of the envelopes because we did Serpentine envelopes, cherry blossom patterned liners on Kunzite AND custom string & button closures where the discs had a printed cherry blossom pattern as well.

Fancy Tags

B Essential Oils Tags
Design: client (with assistance from Spark)
Paper: B is Curious Metallics in Gold Leaf, back card is 2-ply Rising Museum Board in Black
Ink: Gold ink on both pieces
Quantity: 400
Size: 2 x 2.5 approx
Notes: We printed gold ink on the Gold Leaf not knowing what the exact result would be, and what a nice surprise that was! The gold made for a nice tone-on-tone piece. The B was then die cut and we did a loose set eyelet of the gold B to the black card so the B would easily swing up. The gold ink on the black Museum Board did have somewhat of a metallic look to it - more than what we were hoping for. If you haven't worked with 2-ply Museum Board (or even 4-ply which is what we used for their business cards), find a reason to use it. It takes a great impression and is just such a beautiful stock!

Spark hearts designers!

In a non-creepy and completely professional way, of course.

We recently contacted a number of our favorite designers as we continue to expand the letterpress printing side of our business and it's been wonderful to hear back from so many of them. Or should I say you? We've already quoted several fun jobs and we're so thrilled to be considered for these projects.

As many of you already know, we do have our own custom line and some new stationery products. What I enjoy is taking our knowledge of printing and the stationery industry and potentially helping others to be successful with their ventures as well. I think my favorite part is just seeing some of the designs that we are printing and quoting because it is like getting a sneak preview of a new art collection before everyone else.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

We can sew good.

One of our favorite new stationery products has to be these lovely matchbooks with fun sewn edges. Check out our online store to see the full collection!

Wax on, wax off.

This being a print shop, we've got a whole lot of metal to take care of. Most machines of letterpress vintage are largely cast iron. As there are some surfaces that cannot be painted (or at least kept that way,) this means fighting rust is a constant issue. Once a surface is cleaned of rust, which is a separate topic in itself, it needs to be protected from further rust. A coat of wax does a good job of this.

At first I tried this wax, as it is probably the most easily found at the hardware or grocery store. It works fine for most surfaces, but not so well for things that paper touches, such as cutter tables. This is because it has a waxy butterscotch sort of color to it, which can rub off visibly on white paper. This issue led me to the Butcher's wax. It is clear, possibly because it was originally intended for waxing maple bowling alley surfaces. It also smells nice, in a piney-turpentine way.

Though our shop is air conditioned, it's humid enough around here in the summer that the table of our Challenge cutter will get a powdery rust coating overnight. (The ideal solution would be a Polar cutter with a stainless steel work surface, but that's a way off.) Even after the rust is wiped off, the wax still inevitably gets some amount of rust mixed into it as it is applied. Eventually the wax builds up and starts to leave slight rusty marks on the back of the paper as it slides around the paper table. So far my solution has been to periodically strip the wax off as much as possible and start over, but it's pretty putzy. Still trying to find a better solution but it works for now.

Wax is also useful for the beds and platens of platen presses. These are machined cast iron and so are prone to quick rusting. It seems that the tympan and packing on the platen can trap a bit of moisture against the platen, so when it is changed and the platen exposed, it's an opportune time to wax it for good measure. On the Heidelberg windmill, this is one of the few spots prone to rust, as pretty much everything else is painted black or nickel-plated.

Oil is another good rust preventative - luckily for us, almost everything that isn't constantly wiped down will have a film of oil on it. These machines predate things like sealed bearings or delrin bushings. They like to have plenty of oil. Our task is to keep them well oiled, while keeping the parts that touch paper - expensive, bright white paper - perfectly clean. Which will be a topic for another time...

The Loft @ Spark

We are pleased to show off our brand new stationery loft, open to customers in the Sioux Falls area and surrounding communities. Up until now, Spark has only sold our stationery products wholesale through our retailers. Sometimes we never have the opportunity to see the finished invitation set as our retailers assist their clients with a variety of embellishments, calligraphy services, etc. Our stationery loft will provide us with the opportunity to truly see something through from start to finish!

Visit our Loft for the following services:

• wedding, business and personal stationery
• custom designs & artwork
• choice of letterpress, digital and/or offset printing
• hand-finishing services such as eyelet setting, paper and ribbon wraps, sewing, custom mounted pockets, and much more...

Starting September 3rd, hours for our loft will be Monday through Friday, 11am to 6pm. Saturdays 9am to 1pm. For appointments, please call 605.221.5997 or email us at service@sparkstationery.com.

Beary Good Stationery

Sorry...I couldn't resist. It seems like I have to either come up with a really creative post title or something totally cheeseball. You be the judge of which category this one falls into.

Last year we had the pleasure of working with Brian Danaher who brought us this awesome (do people still use this word?) artwork he created for his client Clutter Bear Records. The design was such a great fit for letterpress printing and the colors he chose worked perfectly with the paper.


Clutter Bear Record Identity: Business Card, Letterhead and Mailing Label
Design: Brian Danaher
Paper: Crane Lettra in Fluorescent White, 110# Cover for the Business Card; Neenah Neutech in Pure White, 80# Text for the Letterhead; Uncoated Digital Label Stock for the Mailing Label.
Ink: Light Aqua and Chocolate Brown
Size: 3.5 x 1.75 for the business card, letter-size letterhead
Notes: We let the brown overprint the light aqua color for added visual interest. Sometimes it makes sense to avoid this but I think it added to the design in this case. The tight trimming on both the business cards and letterhead were quite the challenge, but in the end we got it just right and there's nothing better than a good trim on a project.

Retailer Spotlight: Jenny's Paper, Ink in Atlanta

Tell us a little about your store/location.
Jenny's Paper, Ink. is a design studio/showroom located in the Brookhaven area of Atlanta. We specialize in invitations and gifts. We focus on designing and creating the perfect invitation for our customer's special event.

How did you get started in stationery?
I needed a job when I graduated college and there was a position at a local stationery store. I had no experience, but I was always good in sales so they hired me. It did not take long for me to fall in love with paper and all that came along with it. After 3 years I realized I wanted to do more of the design part and not just sales so I opened up my own invitation company!

What do you like most about working with your clients?
I love getting to be a part of the couple's big day! I enjoy helping them through the wedding process and providing them with the knowledge, creativity and experience I have with invitations. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing a bride receive her wedding invitation and loving it!

What is your favorite paper and why?
My favorite paper would have to be Crane Lettra. I love a textured paper and my favorite printing process is letterpress which is perfect for printing on Lettra. It absorbs the ink perfectly and makes you just want to touch it! I love the colors it comes in and that they have a #220 weight. I also love the whole Arturo line, but I like to offset on it instead of letterpress.

What do you think is the most important piece of stationery (besides the wedding invitation) that a couple should consider?
The most important piece of stationery for a couple besides the wedding invitation is the save the date. I love save the dates and think every wedding should have them. They get your guests excited and they truly set the tone for the wedding weekend. With traveling being so difficult, a save the date is a stylish and courteous way to get friends and family thinking about travel plans and accommodations.

What do you offer that keeps your clients coming back to you for their stationery needs?
Jenny’s Paper, Ink provides outstanding customer service and only carries lines that deliver top of the line products and printing. We try to work with vendors who are not represented anywhere else in the southeast, giving us something truly unique. If a client does not find anything in our selected albums we provide complete custom designs specific to their needs. This is what keeps our clients coming back and referring us to their friends and family.

Notes from Spark
We just know that Jenny's clients must love her because we've had such an easy time working with her. Her passion for stationery is obvious and we're lucky to have her as one of our retailers. She's hasn't had our line for very long, but we've already done several orders for her including her new business cards (that will be printed on her favorite paper)!

Class is cancelled for today.

Professor James Curtis Watne needs to cancel today's class as he tends to a super rush order. Please note that a makeup session is scheduled for this weekend. All students are expected to attend the makeup session as it will account for 25% of your final grade.

Fruit Snacks and Potty Breaks

Many of you know that more than a few of us at Spark are related - not surprising since we are a family-owned and operated business. My sister and I have our children at the same daycare, and since it is her vacation week we have to somehow manage caring for all four children and find a way to get our work done. No worries though - the grandparents are mobilized and ready to assist. Amidst the noise of the Dora the Explorer trike making laps around the shop, the endless chattering, questions and snack breaks, we are finding a way to get the orders out. If you happen to find a crude drawing or fruit snack in your shipment, we hope you'll understand!

-Valerie

Circles R Us

We are diecutting more circles than ever at Spark, not to mention a range of other shapes, but circles seem to be the most prevalent. We've been using them as fun save-the-dates, menus and just as part of circle invitation designs. Check out a few of our circle designs, but keep in mind these can be customized however you like!

Posters make us happy.

Fridays on the Promenade Poster
Design: J. D. Gordon Advertising
Paper: French Paper Muscletone in Frostone Glacier, 140# Cover
Ink: Metallic Brown and Olive
Size: a hair under 13x19
Run: 300
Notes: This poster is the largest we can run on our Heidelberg Cylinder KS. We ran it without cropmarks just so we could maximize the size of this poster. The art was masterfully created by our friends at J.D. Gordon, who we've been fortunate enough to work with on several occasions. For items such as this where there are solids and tints, we spend a great deal of time in pre-press to get the right combinations so that when printed the tints aren't too dark and competing with the solid area. We typically do the pre-press on jobs such as these instead of having our clients wrangle with it because there is no exact formula. Our press operator has to look at the overall job in order to figure out what will work best and then it all ends up in Photoshop to be made into one monster bitmap file.

Happy Holidays?

I know the holidays are still months away, but they always have a way of sneaking up on us. We're busily working on holiday designs to add to our current collections. We challenged ourselves to use paper leftover from other jobs we've worked on over the past year as we love to find new uses for this unwanted stock. It's guaranteed to sit around unless we do something about it!

Above is a sneak peek at some art one of our designers, Molly, has been working on. Only I've seen the full views, but I can tell you that they are really special. We're still tweaking the final details with ink colors and such, but we think they will be done in a tone-on-tone green, silver and a deep red when printed. Molly was assigned the Neenah Classic Columns in Spring Green and I think having these patterns and graphics against the column texture will be really lovely. It's always fun to see how the art goes from computer to plates to printed piece to customers. Stay tuned to see the finished product!