Leather...In a Platen Press

Recently a couple friends came to me with an interesting question.

“Can you letterpress a piece of leather?”

They wanted to make a small leather bound book as a gift and needed a way to print the cover. Honestly, screen printing would have been my first choice, but the idea of printing a piece of leather in my platen press was intriguing. After some thoughtful consideration, I was pretty sure we could make it work. So, the artwork was designed and a photopolymer plate was made.

A few days later we inked up the press and began the setup.

The leather we had was about an eighth of an inch think, pretty close to the thickness of a heavyweight paper coaster. But, we used a little more packing than I ordinarily do for coasters, since the leather was much softer.

Next we cut a piece of cardstock to the same dimensions as the leather and measured to get the placement for the photopolymer plate. I constructed a couple of paper gauge pins to hold the sheet of cardstock so we could adhere the plate to the Boxcar base. (Boxcar Press has a great video about gauge pins and registering photopolymer plates on their web site. Click here to watch!)

Before pulling the lever to attach our photopolymer plate, I used a sharpie marker to trace an outline of the cardstock onto the tympan paper. This was an important step because it allow as to register the position of the leather later on.

Tracing the measured sheet with a permanent marker.

So, after careful tracing, the lever was pulled the plate was adhered. We then printed a few dozen prints on cheap cardstock to make sure the press was well inked.

Test prints.

Next, the leather was draped over the platen, aligned to the sharpie outline and taped into place. (A piece of clean white cardstock was taped over the back of the platen, so the leather didn’t pick up any oil off the impression screws.)

The leather aligned with the marker lines and taped into place. The paper gauge pins are still there, but aren't really holding the leather.

I keep my press area as clean as possible, but always take extra precautions lest a little bit of oil ruin a perfectly fine print.

Finally it was time for our first leather print and our first mistake. The leather was so soft that it wanted to cling to the photopolymer plate and when we dropped the lever back, the leather became un-taped from the platen and was sucked through the rollers. Mistake made and lesson learned--when printing a soft, thick piece of leather, have someone hang onto the leather while the the platen is slowly dropped back.

This photo makes me cringe because it looks like my fingers are about to be crushed, but happily we’re opening, not closing, the press.

After cleaning the rollers and photopolymer plate, which had picked up a few pieces of chaff off the back of the leather, we re-inked the press and tried again. This time it went off without a hitch and it was time for the letterpress happy dance. Cha-cha-cha!

In the end we were really happy with the results and I’m thrilled to show off this photo off the completed cover.

Cheers!