BE PATIENT! This is an 8.5 mb download -- when it's loaded, click the '>' (play button) in the center bottom!
The block on the press is a 4x8 foot sheet of 1/4 inch cherry plywood -- easy for me to carry back and forth from the press to the carving machine (only a few feet apart) as this is to be a reduction print, so only one block will be carved, printed, and recarved through the eight printings for theimage.
The papers I'm printing are very thin and very fine Japanese Hosho made by Iwano Ichibei. These are the largest sheets Iwano-san has made in many years -- 42 x 77 inches. The are also the largest sheets I've EVER handled! But the mechanical aids I've designed and built make it so easy!
I feel SOOOooo happy! It works even better than I'd hoped and seems very easy and straight forward... I have a few adjustments to make in moving the paper from the block into the printed paper humi-drawer under the press, but I think that should be a relatively simple improvement.
Considering that these are the VERY FIRST prints I've pulled from the press (and that my skill in handling the blocks, sheets, inks, brushes, drawers, etc. can only improve with practice), these first attempts make me feel optimistic! My only regrets at the moment are that I'm no longer young, strong, and/or slender-- I'll have to work on those a bit (LOL)
Mike
Labels: Woodblock
¶ 9:17 AM 9 comments links to this post
click the 'play' button when it appears to start the video
-- Mike
I've successfully moved my ShopBot CNC machine from the 3rd to the 1st floor... After cutting a large vacuum plenum to hold 4x8 foot by quarter-inch plywood sheets flat and solidly in place on the machine, I experimented yesterday by carving the dozen blocks for my (unimpressive image, I'm sorry to say) prints for Baren Forum Mythical Beasts Exchange (#27).
My kids gave me a nifty and TINY little all-digital video camera for XMAS, and I used it to shoot a 2 1/2 minute video of the computer-guided tool in action -- suitable for Windows Media Player, you can VIEW IT HERE, but you may want to turn down your volume as the router is very loud and obnoxious... What you'll see are some brief cuts of V-bit carving to outline the printing shapes, then clearing outside the V-carved areas with a 1/4" down-spiral -- I've also shown a couple of views of the control screen -- the first shows each line of program code as it's executed -- I think we're at about line 14,000 in the shot -- later there's a view showing the cutting head position in X (length) Y (width) and Z (height) coordinates.
In spite of the unimaginative image, the blocks turned out quite nicely! I'll be printing in pinks and greens for this one...
-- Mike Lyon
¶ 1:13 PM 1 comments links to this post
