Back full force into the rhythm cycle of handling paper to press. Printing has been going wonderfully.

Though I’ve never used this particular paper before I’ve used Hahnemühle stock in (and on) other books in the past including Heart of Darkness which was printed on Biblio. This Schiller that I am using now has a nice crisp surface with an eggshell texture but white – not brilliant white, the mouldmade parent sheets come from the mill at 24×35″ and even come fairly square without too much edge variation and weighs 150gsm. The paper seems to be moderately sized (addition of some sort of glue to the paper fibers at the pulp stage) and by dampening the sheets in advance the surface becomes perfectly receptive to the impression of the lead type and the layer of ink that sits on top of that whole page of type.

Ahh, the ink. Another new find for me, though for decades now I’ve used other ink and raw materials from Graphic Chemical and Ink never before have I tried their simple Block Print Black formula. A white paper with a soft surface needs a soft ink but dense with pigment, here it is. Usually I have to modify ink in some way to make it suit the need of the job but only a bit of talc, if anything, to even out the body and this is perfect. Beautiful contrast and very crisp on the sheet. I’m giving the surface a little extra impression as it looks nice on this thicker stock and I’ll be melting down the type after the project anyway after all printing is done as I’m running out of pigs. But that is the byline of some future post I think.

At any rate I’m pleased with progress and printing of the text so far. Time to set the final details for cover materials for both editions so that I can finish writing the colophon so the type can be set. Also the title page and decide on what display type I’ll be using and all those other little details or wild ideas that come up during this, the “creating” phase of making books.