Letterpress Printing on Crane's Crest Lettra

Letterpress printing is getting more  and more popular, just as almost all of the UK Letterpress Commercial Printers have shut down, and more often than not, broken up their Heidelberg Platens and Cylinder Presses. Not so at Piccolo Press where letterpress is very much alive.

However, to do the beauty of letterpress printing justice, there has to be careful evaluation of the right sort of card and paper to use with this process, so that the impressed image is clear and crisp. 

Piccolo has very recently carried out some trials on Crane Crest Lettra, using both 600gsm and 120gsm stocks. The results are stunning and were shown to Designers at the GF Smith Conference in Hull over the weekend of 26th January 2008. 

The attached pictures show the clear debossing  (and embossing of the Fleuron design) that can be achieved.

This is Tim Honnor, owner and Managing Director of Piccolo Press Limited giving you a little background information about himself.

Tim joined the Royal Navy, via the Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth, in 1958.  (In September this year he celebrates fifty years since signing up for 'life in a blue suit")  

After graduating from his training he served in HMS CRANE, the last of the Bird Class Frigates, stationed on the Far East Station. During this wonderful eighteen months, he visited Japan, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, ending with a unique crossing of the Pacific, visiting most of the British Governed islands en-route.  However, seasickness was always a problem so in 1963 he joined the Submarine Service and served in fourteen "Boats", including three that were Nuclear powered. From 1972-1973 He had the privilege of Commanding HMS  ANDREW, the last of the "A" Class and the only submarine still left with a 4" gun on her casing.

During time ashore during various "Desk Jobs", Tim purchased a small "Adana" printing press and got extremely interested in the whole world of print.  This led to him leaving the Royal Navy in 1984 and setting up Piccolo Press. In the last twenty four years, Piccolo Press has grown to be one of the very few specialist print companies, still producing top quality stationery with time honoured printing skills and beautiful engineered presses, some of them over fifty years old. With a team of twelve Tim often refers to his "HMS PICCOLO"

It is no wonder that Tim is called a "Print Nutter"