Ampersand Duck

Building up a letterpress studio with minimal funds is a slow process that often depends upon luck and opportunity. It’s a lot easier when people are aware that you exist; I get offered type and machines regularly now, but when I first started it was a very different scenario.

My first ever purchase was a small Adana tabletop platen press that came with a cabinet of type, advertised on the internet. My father and I drove up to the Southern Highlands to collect it, and I was really excited to see all the trays, even though they were faces that make me groan now: lots of 6pt script faces and decorative fonts, obviously for printing business cards and invitations. I also got lots of rusty dye-cutting blades and mystery objects, the sort of stuff that lies in boxes around the studio and rarely gets used, if ever. I still have a few of those boxes, still waiting for me to take the time to really go through them. Being inexperienced, I didn’t know what to look for in a press. I still have that Adana, but it doesn’t have platen clips for the tympan padding, and I haven’t stirred myself to get some, so I haven’t got it working. It just graces a corner of the studio.

I didn’t need it because at the time I was working at the art school (I still work there) and I had presses to use when I could be there outside of work. [...]