At the opening of the Kemper Museum "Backstage Pass" show last month, master printer Mike Sims of Lawrence Lithography Workshop invited me to design some images for him to publish. I made half a dozen designs for him and he selected "Jim", a litho using six plates, three of various transparency white inks and three of various transparency black inks on mid-value paper.
I experimented with a number of possible paper colors and decided the Tan was most appropriate for the image, although likely too light -- but I really wanted the paper (not ink) to establish the mid-values as it peeks through all the tiny spaces between lines and through the transparent inks used in four of the plates.
In order to create the mockups I actually created program files as though I were going to make these drawings on my CNC machine. Then I spent a few days writing a new program to convert my drawings into AutoCad DXF files which I loaded into Adobe Illustrator. This was VERY cool (to me) as it allowed me to experiment with various line thicknesses and transparencies and paper colors in order to optimize the films for the plates by 'seeing' accurate previews of the finished print before any plates had been burned or proofed. The image below is reduced from one such full-scale mock-up.
click image for nearly life-size mock-up (2mb PDF)
"Jim" 42x30 inches, lithograph from six plates on Rives BFK Tan paper
pre-production pricing -- contact Lawrence Lithography Workshop for information
I'd originally imagined we could 'dye' white paper a nice mid-gray using sumi or other water-based pigment -- my thought here was to print lighter and darker inks so that the paper color becomes the mid-range of the image, the image being produced from cross hatched squiggley lines similar to my recent drawings.
I tested my paper-coloring idea and abandoned it as beyond me. LLW suggested printing the entire sheet gray, but that was unappealing to me... It's important to me to maintain the 'paper' quality of the paper. So I tested the design, trying out various available papers and decided on Rives BFK Tan which is dark enough for the image and adds a very appropriate color.
In order to accomplish the drawings for the plates, I wrote some (very cool) code to prepare my squiggly lines for a local pre-press shop to produce films from which Mike Sims and the Lawrence Lithography Workshop folk could make the litho plates.
The films for the six plates arrived today and they are pretty spectacular, actually! WOW! I'm SO excited and happy to see these -- and very satisfied to have more or less precipitated my ideas into 'reality' so directly and effortlessly! Here's a photo showing Aaron Shipps (Tamarind Institute master printer and Mike Sims' assistant) with some of the large film positives from which they'll make the plates.
Master printer Aaron Shipps with films for "Jim" lithograph.
Plates were burned from the films yesterday (10-17-2007) and they turned out GREAT! Totally amazing to me what perfectly clear sharp lines appeared when the plates were developed. This is going to be a very successful print, I think, and the scale is terrific. VERY exciting, and very gratifying that Lawrence Lithography is investing such an enormous amount of time and money in publishing my work!
Master Printers Aaron Shipps and Mike Sims develop plate
click on image to view movie of plate creation (00:03:30 4mb)
Printing should begin on Monday!
October 25-26, 2007 -- first proofs of "Jim"
click image above for movie (3.5mb download) pulling first complete proof
Mike Sims (foreground) and Aaron Shipps (background) inspect proofs at LLW
First proof of "Jim" (click image for detail)
amazingly close, I think, to my mock-up (first image in post)
but whites are too cool and perhaps too opaque in the proof...
The BFK paper has turned out to be too light in value to provide the mid-values the image requires. We're considering various measures to darken the paper... Tea-staining the BFK Tan to make the paper darker overall, printing a flat over the entire sheet, printing a 7th plate in a mid-value under the image (I've produced an image for film to accomplish that, but that method is pretty far afield from my 'pure' concept of lightening and darkening the paper through cross-hatched squiggles, so I'd much prefer either finding or producing a darker paper than under-printing the 7th plate...
November 5 and 6 proof on BFK Tan paper which I printed mokuhanga style from two blocks (first printing a cherry block in a blue/green, and then an ash block in a neutralish red which gave the pronouced wood grain)
The proof above might be the direction we follow for the print. In this one, a silhouette in dark brown was printed on top of the mokuhanga style woodgrain printing, then the six blocks in whites and blacks was printed on top. Today, I'll run over to LLW to print four more sheets in a similar fashion, but a bit darker, and we'll try to eliminate the silhouette plate. The middle black in the print above was TOO transparent, I think, and didn't pop properly, so we'll try to fix that as well. Lots of work ahead before it's ready for editioning!
Jim dropped in to see some of the proofs at LLW 11/28/2007
More to follow as the edition proceeds!
-- Mike
Labels: drawing, Lithography, Woodblock
¶ 5:58 PM 5 comments links to this post
The opening Friday, September 1 of "Mike Lyon: Large Scale Drawings and Woodblock Prints" was a pretty humongous party! I suppose more than 600 people passed through the gallery that evening between 7 when the doors were unlocked and about 9:40 when Sherry Leedy shooed the last of us out the door. I saw MANY old friends which was just wonderful.
I've posted a short FLASH movie -- a walk through of the gallery and show including a few brief and very impromptu interviews
click to watch Flash movie (about 9mb)
my VERY old friend (when I lived in New York, I occasionally walked him to pre-school), the now best selling author Seth Mnookin and his friend Sara visited the next day while they were in town for a wedding and it was great to touch base again (photo: Jennifer Bowerman)
My old painting instructor, retired chair of the Kansas City Art Institute's painting department, Wilbur Niewald, was there -- he just returned from a Guggenheim Fellowship spent painting in the Southwest US. He had the most wonderful time and we've got a dinner planned to find out all about it. Wilbur's close friend, another retired painting professor at the Art Institute, Michael Walling was there and bought my "Fixing Hair" print. That was very nice.
Another KCAI retired faculty member, Victor Babu (of ceramics fame) visited and really seemed to love EVERYthing! He's an enthusuiastic guy and characterized my big "Sara" reclining nude woodcut this way: "Omenish, very very omenish -- the deep-deep-darks and the figure turned away -- as if she's sad or angry and maybe she's talking about it -- but what's she saying? She's rolled away up there but there's that comfortable knitted thing up front -- it's soft, but she's turned away from the comfort thing and us and all those deep blues -- omenish... very VERY omenish!" -- I asked him to please write my artist's statement! (ha, ha)!
view entering gallery
The director of the Kemper Museum, Rachel Blackburn, was there and bought the big "Sarah" drawing for their permanent collection. That felt great, I can tell you! Doug Freed, Director of the Daum Museum was there earlier with Dr. Daum and bought bought the big "Jon" drawing for their permanent collection! Wow and double-WOW! Very validating to me that these two excellent regional contemporary art museums stepped up and collected my most recent work on opening day!
Kemper Museum director, Rachel Blackburn
The place was a beritable BUZZ of activity all night long -- people pressing their noses right up against the prints and drawings, pointing and talking and it all seemed very energetic and positive! Now I've settled down a bit and am waiting for post-partum depression to overwhelm me!
-- Mike
Labels: Exhibitions, Woodblock
¶ 2:25 PM 10 comments links to this post
An exhibition of my recent work titled: "Mike Lyon: Large Scale Drawings and Woodblock Prints" runs September 1, through October 21, 2006 at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, 2004 Baltimore, Kansas City, Missouri. Opening: 7-9 pm First Friday, September 1, 2006, hours 11-5 Tue through Saturday, 816-221=2626. Here's the gallery's mailer (folds are in the mailer, not the drawing):
click image for enlargement
-- Mike
Labels: Exhibitions, Woodblock
¶ 9:40 AM 7 comments links to this post
The large (42 x 77 inch) prints of "Sara" reclining on her messy bed have been successfully completed -- I selected 8 for the edition plus two proofs. There is some variation among the edition, the greatest differences being in the depth of the deepest tones behind the head and in the top background -- these were introduced when I used the baren to print one of the blocks, pressing too hard about half the prints resulting in some loss of color at the edges of the block forms. Something to remember for next time! But overall the ten printed sheets are reasonable uniform, all things considered.
Here's a decent photo of one of the prints (compare to previous post):
"Sara", 42 x 77 inch woodblock print (17 blocks)
Permanent Collection, Beach Museum of Art
I handled registration a bit differently this time... The blocks were carved with three identical side kento, each about 1 1/2 inches long, and the center of the middle one was inscribed with a very narrow line. I used a razor blade to produce three flat edges in the deckle of each sheet (parallel to the edge of the sheet)so that they'd line up with the kento in the blocks, and I drew a short pencil line in the center of the middle 'notch' to be lined up with the line inscribed in the middle kento. Surprisingly, this worked very well, and I found it easy to register each sheet to the blocks, aligning the pencil mark with the inscribed line on the block. At the far edges, this resulted in about +/- .05 inch of dead on which is plenty close for the image and the eye. Given the size of the sheets I'm not sure I can do much better than that...
-- Mike
Labels: Woodblock
¶ 3:42 PM 3 comments links to this post
Good lord, it's hot in my studio! I'm working on "Sara", a 17 block woodcut on ten sheets of 42 x 77 inch Iwano Ichibei hosho paper. Sweaty work and EXHAUSTING!!! I'm managing to print about 3 or 4 blocks per day and that's really all I am able to manage! But I'm getting better and better at using the large press I built about seven or eight months ago, even though this is only the third edition I've pulled on it. Some photos after I completed printing of the 14th block this afternoon, and you can click here to see a Flash movie (about 6 minutes / 9 mb) showing start-to-finish printing of one sheet around block four...
click image to enlarge
click image to enlarge
Sorry about the ugly shadows at the edges of the paper -- the paper's really not at all brown -- also, while damp like this the thin sheets are somewhat transparent, so you can see (left edge) part of the print underneath this one through the top sheet...
-- Mike
Labels: Woodblock
¶ 4:40 PM 7 comments links to this post
What a wonderful surprise when John O'Brien called from Dolphin Gallery to let me know that the framing of five of my new (large) works were done -- Justin and Greg came by a short while later to deliver the things and here they are all wrapped up in their milky protective plastic wrapping and leaning against the wall of my 2nd floor studio -- you get the picture:
Two woodblock prints (far left and 2nd from right) and three pen and ink drawings -- click to enlarge
-- Mike
Labels: Exhibitions, Woodblock
¶ 1:21 PM 5 comments links to this post
Dear Center for Contemporary Printmaking moku-hanga workshop participants (Janis Carter, Carol Borelli, Aeleen Frisch, Charles Hallock, Andrea Krupp, Simone Ingram, Wimberley Burton, Mary Gerster, Su Tamsett):
back row: Su, Mike, Aeleen, Carol, Janis
front row: Wimberley, Andrea, Charles, Simone, Mary
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!! What a great week we had, and I congratulate you all for having designed, carved, and successfully printed Japanese technique woodblock prints! WOW! YOU DID IT! Janis -- I'm SO sorry you fell ill the 2nd day -- hope you're all well now and that you'll be able to finish up the next time I visit Connecticut? Special thanks to our host, the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, CCP director and master printer, Tony Kirk, and staff Chris, Heather, Jackie, and everyone else who made it so easy for us all to be together!
I hope you don't mind that I've edited two little movies from our time together -- one with very brief cuts from the introductions you each made (sorry that I've surely left out some very important stuff here)... At the end of the introduction movie is what little we captured of baren-cover-tieing -- sorry my camera filled up before I finished, but maybe this'll get you started? I'll film it start to finish the next time I re-cover my baren so you can remember how to do it yourself! The second movie contains some shots of each of you working on SOMEthing, and I've also included a link to a scrapbook with a bunch of little photos I nabbed of you your prints. Carol and Su -- you guys were gone before I was able to photograph your prints -- send me some scans and I'll add them! Hope you enjoy!
MOVIE: Introductions and baren covering (partial) -- 7:26 (5.5mb)
MOVIE: Participants at work! -- 7:45 (5.7mb)
SCRAPBOOK of prints and participants -- 72 images
Best always,
Mike
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¶ 5:33 PM 1 comments links to this post
You asked about how I mix and apply pigment...
When printing very pale colors, I generally add pigment dispersion or dry pigment to rice paste or methyl cellulose, mix well, and then dab that onto the damp block and brush out. For more saturated colors, I mix a substantial amount of dry pigment into a bit of paste and water and let stand overnight, stirring well the following day prior to printing -- OR -- I use pigment dispersion (a pigment-saturated liquid which mixes freely into water) as I demonstrate in the movie below. I add the pigment directly into a damp area of the block and then brush out until I achieve an even and satiny surface suitable for printing.
click the '>' play button when it appears to play the movie
8 blocks printed
detail
-- Mike
Labels: Woodblock
¶ 11:43 AM 4 comments links to this post
I've completed printing four blocks (of 12 total blocks) onto six 77 x 42 inch sheets (image 75 x 40 inches) and it's going... Well... Interestingly! I'm clearly very much on the steep part of the learning curve and my printing's more or less out of control at the moment -- even so, this looks like it'll be a pretty nice image of the dense aspen grove next to my parents' home in Colorado.
the print after four blocks
detail showing grain printing from walnut block
the 5th block (reduction state) underway -- this is 1/2" 'cabinet grade (A1)' walnut veneer
-- Mike
Labels: Woodblock
¶ 4:05 PM 3 comments links to this post
pulling the final impression
Another brief movie shows the vacuum plenum on the press in greater detail. Rather than load it here, I'm providing a link in case you'd like to watch it (0.8mb)...
detail of final print (still damp!)
the completed prints in humi-drawer prior to drying
-- Mike
Labels: Woodblock
¶ 12:53 PM 7 comments links to this post
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
Finally, I had a major "AHA" night before last when Linda, my wife, hit the button to open our automatic garage door! YES, that's IT! So... Yesterday I did a little research on the Internet and found a nifty 'screw driven' garage door opener manufactured by Genie and widely available for about $170! I ran over to Home Depot and bought one -- they had about 50 of 'em on the shelf -- includes all the electronics and controls I needed, plus the linear actuator -- they sell so many of them that they are CHEAP for what's in the box, I think!
Last night and this morning I assembled the thing with some modifications to the limit switches so they'd work upside down which was the best way for me to mount the thing to my humidor drawer. Went together EASY and works like a charm! The seven inch per second action is pretty ideal for the way I want to use it, and I can actuate it by foot or by knee very easily -- even came with three remote control devices (which I don't imagine I'll need), so I can very easily open the drawer, register the paper to the block while the drawer holds the paper up above the inky block, hold it in place with both hands and hit the switch to close the drawer -- looks to me like it will work like a charm! I'm VERY happy today!
Here's the humidor in action (remote in one hand, camera in the other, animated from still photos as the drawer moved from closed to open) -- YOU GOTTA LOVE IT! That's a full 4x8 foot drawer moving easily back and forth -- it's working so very well!
Here's the view from underneath and behind the humidor with the drawer closed. The slide has actuated the garage drawer opener's 'open' limit switch at upper left and the linkage from the slide to the drawer is visible at the top left to center. The opener is supported at the far end by an aluminum triangle visible on the right, and the wire coil to the 'foot switch' is visible in the background.
Barely worth mentioning, as I might actually disconnect this and go with one of the remotes -- but this is the 'foot switch' -- modified by hot-melt gluing a small block of wood to the button so it extends far enough above the body of the thing to be 'clicked' by a tap of the foot...
-- Mike
¶ 6:23 PM 1 comments links to this post
March, 2004 printing table with sliding drawer humidor -- very sturdy table made of 1/4" plywood pieces which 'lock' together with simple hooked tabs and slots. Takes about five minutes to assemble or break down and packs into a 2" thick box for transporting.
This 'small' humidor is a sealed plexi box which dovetails onto the table. It has two open-top drawers with blotter in the bottom to keep paper damp and ready for printing. The bottom drawer slides open just over the block by pressing a foot 'pedal'. A sheet may then be pulled up over the lip of the drawer and registered onto the block while supported by the drawer. As the foot pedal is released, the drawer slides closed under the paper allowing it to settle onto the block very sweetly!
The new humidor is a very scaled up and mobile version of a traditional Japanese damp-stack. The bottom of the drawer is a 4 x 8 foot sheet of 6mm Coroplast (corrugated plastic sheet) which supports the damp stack -- 1st the damp blotter, then the dampended sheets (up to 4 x8 feet), then 'sealed' with another sheet of Coroplast. The top sheet will be supported by a simple lifting bar, similar to the way silkscreens are generally supported above the paper until the screen is dropped -- a pair of short retractable legs will hold the Coroplast above the paper stack during registration (while the drawer is open over the block). When the drawer is allowed to close, the 'legs' will be retracted by the structure of the drawer support and the Coroplast will settle back down, sealing the dampstack until it is time to print the next sheet. Printed sheets will be peeled up from the back and slid down over the front rail of the press into a similar drawer (not yet completed) which opens to the front mounted under the lower rails of the press. When a press pass is completed, the whole stack of printed papers will be picked up as a sandwich and flipped neatly back into the open paper delivery drawer (I HOPE)!
Because I want to be able to move freely around the press while brushing up the block, I've left a 24" aisle open between the press and the closed paper delivery drawer, so the drawer has to move quite a long way to arrive over the block! Each 'glide' of the large drawer is a bit over 87 inches long, stiffened by a 30x60mm aluminum extrusion. To prevent tipping, the drawer frame will be bolted into the floor (which is my hardware store visit, as they supplied me with the wrong size mounting hardware late last week -- ugh)...
side view of paper delivery drawer (slid back a bit to allow drilling into floor underway)
detail showing drawer corner and glide assembled to end plate -- simple 'stops' (not shown) are bolted into the ends of the fancy extrusions to prevent over-travel in either direction.
The drawers are quite simple -- the long front and back are 1" square x 1/8" aluminum tube with 1-1/2" x 1/8" flat bar screwed underneath to provide a lip for the CoroPlast bottom. The sides are 1-1/2" x 1/8" aluminum angle, and there's another bar mounted in the center between the front and back tubes to prevent bowing during open and close actions.
The drawer support is a simple trestle, held parallel by four lengths of 1/2" galvanized pipe tensioned with all-thread running the length and piercing the the 3/16" aluminum end plates and the 2" square tube legs -- tightened with four nuts and washers on each end. Bottom tube is bolted to legs and floor to prevent tipping.
press and paper delivery drawer which is shown partially open over the press bed
Next step: assemble the vacuum plenum for the press, assemble the bottom printed paper receiving drawer, and finally decide how to get the drawer to open and close while I hold the paper registered to the block with both hands! Getting REAL close to printing again, at last!
By the way, the press 'action' is a dream come true -- glides so easily and surely across the bed regardless of pressure setting -- I hope the thing PRINTS every bit as smoothly and beautifully as it seems to operate!
-- Mike
¶ 8:41 AM 4 comments links to this post
-- Mike
¶ 12:25 PM 4 comments links to this post
close-up of press drive
back-side assembly
drive side bottom view
top roller bearing guides test fitted OK
my very messy installation this morning
But one serious problem has now become apparent -- I originally conceived the press with the 1/8 inch bed held (like a drawer-bottom) by the inside slots of the main rails all around. Somehow I managed to under-dimension the press bed by about 3/8 inch, so it is able to slide around quite sloppily, and there's sufficient deflection side-to-side in the main rails to allow the bed to slip out of its track in the center. I've got 1/2 inch between the ends of the rollers and the side rails, though (to make it easier to keep the press bed swept free of wood chips and other debris), so I'll repair the problem when I attach some lengths of 1/4" x 2-1/4" plate to the inside of each top rail and then screw the bed down tight to those, using some flat-head machine screws countersunk into the bed very close to the rails. That should serve to stabilize both bed and side rails without too much work and without interfering with the smooth passage of the rollers across the bed.
-- Mike
-- Mike
¶ 6:57 AM 1 comments links to this post
Mike Lyon takes a quick breath after assembling the press onto its legs.
See previous description of this project
¶ 4:36 PM 2 comments links to this post
Late in 2004, I decided to produce large woodblock prints -- larger than I was able working alone and using a baren... Of course, I'd considered using assistants, but prefer to work alone and on my own schedule. So I began to think seriously about what sort of 'press' I might like to use. I tested the method on some medium scale (32") blocks for "Anthony" using my 30 x 60 inch bed etching press and the very lightest pressure and it worked much better than I'd expected, so I began by researching existing large intaglio presses (I'd first looked into the possibilty of building a huge hydraulic plate-press, but it appeared too heavy and much too costly). Large intaglio presses are also quite expensive, and the best were specifically designed for very thin plates and didn't have sufficient room between the bed and the top roller to accommodate both my blocks and the vacuum plenum I require to hold them flat. None of the manufacturers seemed willing to modify their designs to my specifications -- that came as something of a surprise to me, but I understand their reluctance better now. There were also some significant paper handling problems to overcome while registering large papers single-handed (to be described in a future posting).
Because of space considerations in my studio, a moving bed press was undesirable (requiring a footprint twice the length of the bed, so I first tried to design a very stiff bedded press with a single roller. Deflection of the bed seemed to me to be an insurmountable problem with this method, so I decided a more conventional two-roller scheme would be easier to engineer. I ultimately decided to design a somewhat unique two-roller 'wringer' type press in which the bed would be stationary and the rollers could move back and forth across the bed. Because the rollers work in opposition, the bed could be very thin -- just stiff enough to support the block prior to printing. I got some 'help' from Doug Forsythe's $25 plans to 'build your own etching press' -- these made for a more confident start!
One of the most important decisions was exactly 'how' the rollers could be made to accurately move back and forth along the press bed. There are many options for 'linear motion' solutions -- after much consideration and comparison, I selected some off-the-shelf components from Bishop Wisecarver (BWC.com) who not only provided the excellent (and expensive) aluminum extrusions I chose for the frame components, but also the compatible carriage and rail system which will convey the rollers along the frame rails.
carriage and rail illustration from Bishop Wisecarver
After many false starts and much consideration about exactly how large I might want to print, I decided to dimension the press to enable printing full size blocks cut from widely available 4x8 foot 'standard' sheets of plywood.
drawing of the final press plan
Getting the measurements right, figuring out how long things should be, how to make everything fit together, especially in the drive section where a number of parts had to be coordinated was challenging! For example, consider the two sprockets and chain in the drive -- that has always seemed so simple... Until I tried it! There are a HUGE number of choices of chain sizes and sprocket sizes, and after figuring out what weight of chain would work, then there's the desired mechanical advantage, and finally, you can't just measure chain to the nearest 16th inch, the links are fixed, so you have to calculate how many links, then the shaft centers can be figured and fit exactly... LOTS of new stuff to learn and calculate -- I must have tried 100 different combinations of chains and sprockets before deciding on one set which would work... In the process, I gave up on the configuration which would probably have been best -- placing a light weight chain inside each of the long rails which support everything, then meshing a sprocket into that chain on each side to drive the rollers along... That would'a been very cool, but I wasn't patient enough to redesign EVERYTHING in order to make it all fit... Compromises, compromises...
detail of the plan showing the rollers, bearings, sprockets, etc... kinda hard to read, eh?
So eventually I decided on a design I thought would work using as many 'off the shelf' components as I could find, and making the rest. Because I thought I could machine aluminum myself using the same CNC machine (from ShopBot Tools) I've been using to carve large blocks since March, 2004, I designed many of the parts to be cut out of 1/2" aluminum -- here's the drawing from which the parts were machined:
aluminum parts machining plan
Below is a photo of the machining in progress -- it was more difficult than I'd imagined, and I broke a few bits out of ignorance, but if I have to do it again, I'll be able to accomplish it much more easily. Live and learn!
machining the aluminum parts
view of machine and completed aluminum parts
the completed aluminum parts along with some of the bearings, handles, etc to be mounted
OK, I got a little fancy and engraved a logo on the faceplate, then filled it with pigment laden epoxy and sanded it down flush -- kinda pretty!
The rollers were another challenge... The bottom roller had to be machined to very close tolerance in order to exactly engage the press bed. I was also concerned about potential deflection in the 1.25" center shaft and performed some fairly complex calculations in order to satisfy myself that deflection would be minimal under load. Eventually I settled on a design which I had bid at several local machine shops. My design called for four large 'washers' to be welded to the shaft and the inside of schedule 80 black pipe, then for the pipe to be turned to precise dimension. But it turns out that schedule-80 pipe is unsuitable for turning, as it contains stresses which won't allow an accurate turning to be produced, so I had to go with much more expensive seamless DOM (drawn over mandril) tubing.
the drawing for fabrication of the rollers
the BEAUTIFUL nickel-plated rollers themselves!
view of assembly area, the 10 foot long press bed is at the top in the background, the aluminum extrusion rails are at the left, the two nickel plated steel rollers are visible as well
Detail of the roller ends -- a local machine shop did a fantastic job fabricating these, even turning down the welds to make smooth chamfers! They are almost stand-alone works of art themselves!
So I am finally actually assembling the thing! So far everything fits perfectly, and I'm feeling optimistic that it's all going to really work! The rails and carriages have been assembled to the frame sides, seem to work as I'd imagined, and look good!
Assembly detail showing BWC carriage mounted to carriage rail and carriage rail mounted to press rail, and press rail attached to leg and brace.
Total cost has been about $6,500 (yikes! But still SO MUCH cheaper than even a well-used intaglio press of similar size)
To be continued (Mike Lyon -- 10/31/2005)...
¶ 10:47 AM 4 comments links to this post
Here's what the juror had to say about her choice of "Anthony":"I was most impressed with Anthony's boldness and directness -- the content itself -- its scale, its lack of sentiment, the graphic beauty of the contrasts. the immediacy, I guess, of the image, married to a technique which seemed to my uneducated eyes to perfectly support that image. It is so monumental as well, which stood out among works that had to be limited to a certain dimension. Most people make small or medium sized works when the dimensions are medium-scaled. Yours was monumental in a really satisfying way."
Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Curator of American and Contemporary Art
Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art
The University of Texas at Austin
Labels: Exhibitions, Woodblock
¶ 10:00 AM 2 comments links to this post
