After a long-time obsession with stationary and letterpress, Ryan and I decided to buy a printing press. We went to the Museum of Printing in Andover and tried to learn a little more about what we were getting ourselves into. We originally wanted a smaller table top press but quickly learned that we would be limiting the sizes we would be able print. Because we had the space for a larger printer we decided on an 8 x 12 Chandler and Price platen press.

After getting it home (and having a tow truck take it off the trailer for us) we began the messy process of refurbishing it. We stripped off all of the old paint and about a hundred years of old ink before we repainted it it’s original black. We took the entire thing apart so that we could learn exactly how it worked and to replace a few of the parts. Every time a piece came off I would become more and more certain that it’d never go back together but about two weeks later we put the last piece back in place and it runs perfectly.