Layout questions

What are some examples of layout for an 8x12? I’m using a 6x9 boxcar base with polymer.

So what I mean is, biz cards, invites, reply cards, how many up along with common sizes of the later.

I’m guessing 4 up for biz cards with extra for trim and pins. But 6x9 card… Do I run a 7x10 sheet? Or larger and work and turn it like on offset press?

Hope this is not confusing anyone

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unless i’m doing large runs i usually run things to size just 1 up, it depends on margins, most of the time 1 up works. You have an 8x12, you don’t want to try to print a large area, the larger you print the more impression it takes to get a good copy. the more up the larger the plate, the more the plate costs. Good Luck Dick G.

For almost anything I do, I prefer to do them 1-up, even business cards. And I cut the paper to the correct size before starting to print, unless I’m doing something fancy like a bleed to the edge.

Mostly, the time actually printing is one of the shortest spans in the process, so printing two-up or more doesn’t really save much time and adds extra headaches. Also, since this is a hobby, and I like standing at the press feeding in paper, there’s not much incentive to make it shorter usually.

Work and turn has own drawbacks. I get a lot more misfeeds with work and turn; it’s harder to keep to a steady rhythm.

Of course, I’m not in this to make money and a print run of over 500 is very unusual for me. I think the last time was 2500 playing card backs for a class I help teach. Which I did one up in 4 colors. That took about 4 four-hour sessions.

Arie, when you do a work-and-turn job are you trying to flip the sheet between impressions? That would lead to misfeeds. The sheets should just be fed sequentially for the first impression, then the pile turned and sheets fed through a second time. Otherwise you are backing up wet ink, which should be let to dry first.
Or perhaps there is confusion about what a work-and-turn form is. It is a two-up imposition (or four or whatever) with front and back forms on the same side of the sheet; after the first pass the sheet is turned over, using the same head and side guides. It is not to be confused with work-and-tumble, where the sheet is turned over so the tail becomes the head on back up; or work-and-whirl (or -twist) where two complementary fronts are on the same sheet, and the sheet is turned head for tail with same side up.
On lists like this terminology is misused so often that it is sometimes necessary to explain things that might be taken for granted.

I’ve been printing for 49 years and i still get the terms screwed up, Parallel is right, the terminology on this site is all over the place, so thing that most printers know have to be explained over and over, but that’s ok. Dick G.

I think the important folks need to remember with work and turn is that the guide needs to be swapped to the other side (to the right side instead of the usual left). Feeding the right corner is not near as intuitive and I suspect many pressman have a problem with this. I like to run my 2 sided cards as work and turn, though work and whirl works with good stock and a not to picky back up.

If your stock is really consistent, swapping the guides isn’t such a necessity; but knowing how to feed paper for all manners of imposition is a very good skill to have in any instance.

Thinkng about this, I realize that some of the confusion could be due to the Maravelas book. He makes several major errors, including describing work-and-whirl imposition but calling it work-and-turn, and instructing readers to use sinkers upside down. And now book arts teachers are compounding the errors.

Hmmm. I’ve always been told that with work and turn you put the same form twice on the same side of the sheet by turning the sheet around 180 degrees.

Cleeton is silent on the issue and that’s the only book within reach just now.

Anyway, no, I do not print immediately on the back side of what I’ve just printed.

From the Printing Industry of America’s “A Composition Manual” published in 1953:

Work-and-turn.The page forms for both sides of a signature are locked up together and printed in one impression, on a double size sheet, for work-and-turn printing. Then the sheet is turned over, end-for-end, and the same form is printed in register on the other side. As in sheetwise printing, the side guide usually is changed to the opposite side when the sheet is turned over.

Well, Arie, I asked because you said work and turn causes you to make misfeeds and lose rythm. Imposition, the arrangement of pages on a press-sheet, shouldn’t have much effect on how a sheet feeds by hand. The sheet doesn’t know if it is two-up sheetwise (two fronts), two up work-and-whirl (two complimentary fronts such as cross-rules and down-rules) or two-up work-and-turn (front and back). So I was wondering if you were whirling or turning the sheet on the tympan as you printed. If not, I still wonder what the difficulty could possibly be.

well with poly plates from boxcar, there is a minimum price anyway, So I was thinking of multiple ups. But in hind sight it would be more cost effective to gang different jobs on one plate and then cut them down when they arrive.

although four up biz cards worked well the other day (just saying). It had good bite and ink.

Maybe gang jobs of the same color too.

Thanks for the work and turn definition. Not what I’m doing. So apparently I’m doing work and whirl, but with a 1-up form; printing the same thing on two ends of the same side of the sheet, but in opposing orientations.

The difference in the two motions, feeding a new sheet and twirling the one in the press is enough to throw me off rhythm. Maybe I’m just not very coordinated. The last time I tried this was recently in Iowa at the Great Northern. I normally use a treadle operated 8x12 and there was using a motorized 12x18. I normally only misfeed a few times in a session (normal feeding) with the press at home and was doing so constantly in Iowa (work and whirl). Eventually I found a rhythm with two sheets in process at one time…print end a of sheet one, print end a of sheet two, twirl sheet one in my hand and print end b of sheet one, twirl sheet two in my hand and print end b of sheet two. Repeat with the next two sheets. Eventually printed about 500 copies in two colors one one side and a bit of type on the reverse.

It’ll be in the October APA bundle I hope. I try to use the sessions in Iowa to play with some different equipment than I normally use and experiment with different printing surfaces. Last year I used window screen and some cardboard stencils with limited success and this year I used foam stickers from Wal*mart. Though the design isn’t anything to write home about; the stickers printed really well. I’ll be doing that again.