I’d like to attempt to make some various MakeICT logo cuts (think linoleum block, cut in a design – kind of the same idea) out of hardwood. I want to see how it looks if we carve them on the shopbot or a smaller CNC. We’d make them available for anyone doing printing on the letterpress in the future, and we can use them for business cards, letterheads, and envelopes for MakeICT, as well. @doug.wilson are you up for that?
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For sure. How thick? And what’s the maximum dimension for the design?
The chase is about 10 x 15 inches. Type height is .918 inches.
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Lemme rephrase that. 15 inches wide by 10 inches high. And exactly .918 inches thick.
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Could they be done on the laser cutter? (I made block print using it once.)
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Some things, yes. But some, like wood type display fonts, need to have a fairly deep shoulder, which the laser doesn’t handle as well. For things like cuts with artwork or even halftones, the laser is the best choice (unless you send off and have a real letterpress cut made with a photo resist on zinc or magnesium).
Wood type on CNC:
Letterpress cut (linoleum block) on laser:
Photo-etched zinc cut:
There’s also the flexographic plate method that uses a photo-sensitive polymer material, which I hope we can set up to do. We already have the equipment we need in the Printmaking area, but we’ll need to invest a few hundred dollars to buy a box of flexo material.
Flexo plates:
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Now that I think about it, I might be able to do a flexo-type cut on my SLA printer with a softer resin…something kind of rubbery but firm. I’ll have to try that.
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