Print area for Adan 8x5

Hi, I am doing some research before buying an Adana 8x5 from Caslon. I am planning to print wedding invitations for friends and other stationery and bits and pieces. I have been looking at the base plates that Boxcar make as they seem straightforward and reliable though maybe an expensive option. For an Adana they recommend the deep relief base and then to get KF152 photopolymer plates made. The base they recommend for a 8x5 chase is 3.5x6.5… this may be an obvious question but is that the maximum space I would be able to print on?
Have other people found this too restrictive a size to be printing invitations? I suppose it is all part of the design challenge! If I want to print a larger area could I use a larger piece of paper and print twice or more- side by side?
Thankyou!

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Don’t expect to print a forme measuring 8 x 5 inches on an Adana. You have to leave some space in the chase for your quoins. Boxcar recommendation should be followed here for the size of the base. But you can print larger sheets on the press. With a little bit of thinking and some ingenuity, you can do a lot on that little press.
I managed to print an 8 page booklet on it, a page at a time!
Good luck.

The more type you try to print the more pressure it takes, most presses you can figure the max is one-half the size of the chase. Like Thomas said with a little thinking you can do a lot with this press. Dick G.

Thank you, that clarifies things a lot for me. I think I’ll go ahead- I’m very excitied about it. I have limited experience from college (NCAD in Dublin, Ireland) where we used a huge printing press where posters etc could be printed (I’m not sure of the model). Now that I think of it my own wedding invitations were probably less than 3.5x6 folded up- I printed them digitally on an A4 printer on half an A3 sheet- so that they opened out- but had to do all sorts of tricks to get what I wanted! I ended up using gold leaf and cuts and folds as well as the print- they would have looked really amazing in letterpress!
Thanks again for the info.
Jean