Red pressboard

I don’t know the size you need but press board was used to make folders.I find some at thrift stores 8X10 and under.

I have been buying press packing from www.gwjcompany.com. I have them cut it to size for my windmill.

Scrap booking supply, arts and crafts, or picture framing stores?

Oh sorry - of course I should probably have mentioned that my chase is 13x18 (Heidelberg GT - the big Windmill). I’ve found that taking the 18x24 medium- weight manilla tagboard, fold it in half, add 2 gloss #100 text sheets and a tympan sheet (+ the sheet I’m printing) will take the packing to the recommended 1/25”. I’m just wondering if the tagboard has properties that make it less desirable as a packing material than red pressboard.

Bar-Plate still has Genuine Pressboard - https://www.barplate.com/product/genuine-pressboard/
The color doesn’t matter. I’ve used red, green, and gray, it’s all the same. Is NA Graphics out of it?

Thanks! It’s on backorder at NA Graphics.

We just can’t order pressboard from the mill as a stock item any more, and paper dealers do not stock it. So we have to order it as a custom mill run and wait our turn. We have a mill order in now for delivery sometime in June. There has been a several month delay in this as we were caught off guard by a change in policy caused by the pandemic and the general down turn in most paper products except toilet paper.

We stick with the traditional red pressboard as that was the only color made for years before the designers started using pressboard for things other than printing. Pressboard is one of the oldest paper products still made, dating unchanged except for colors since the late 19th century. My first Kelsey catalog from 1954 was my introduction to pressboard and it has been part of my printing routine ever since, and now I sell it as one of the items from NA Graphics. Paper products used for packing should be accurately made and pressboard has a hard density with a very accurate finish, or thickness, to it.

Thanks for your post, Fritz, very informative. I miss a lot of that history as my letterpress career didn’t start till the mid-’70s.

I didn’t realize Fritz carried pressboard, so I ended up ordering some GBC 11 x 17 Pressboard Report Covers, with the plan being to cut off the covers and use them. When they arrived in the mail, they came rolled up and squashed, so I shelved that plan. But if 11x17 is big enough, and if you can find them somewhere local where they haven’t been trashed by the postal system (I think Staples carries them), they’re a good source of pressboard.

I’m going to use the tagboard until Fritz receives his pressboard. It’s probably not quite firm/hard enough but good enough for my current needs.

I’m going to use the tagboard until Fritz receives his pressboard. It’s probably not quite firm/hard enough but good enough for my current needs.