Printing press

Last week for our field trip in my History of the Book class, we went to the Crandall Historical Printing Museum to see the whole process of how books used to be printed--Gutenberg style. 

They claim to have the only working model of a Gutenberg press, and I have to admit, it's pretty impressive! Check it out:

This cute old man standing in front of the press. It was almost like a little play that he put on, because he was explaining a lot of the history behind it as he was showing us how the press works. 

 The punch for the type:

 Setting the type:

 I was super impressed with him at this point. He is using these stamp things to rub the ink together, dispersing it evenly across the surface. The picture doesn't show how fast and aptly he's rubbing them together, turning them around at the same time. He must have some serious wrist muscles! 

("super-bionic, super-powered, super wrists?")

 Here he is stamping on the ink:

 Setting the paper down:

closing it and putting it under the press:

 And then you pull the lever to press it:

 And voila! You have a printed page!

Some other little things lying around:

To create the actual type, you first have to make a mold, so basically you pour some kind of metal into that little contraption with the round part (the two pieces lying there fit together) (there's a mold for each letter), and it hardens super fast and you get your little type piece. 

The moveable type is loaded into what's called a composing stick (that thing with a handle) in small sections.

 The prints hanging up to dry:

 The ink table:

 They have a copy (like, a facsimile) of Gutenberg's 42-line Bible. 

The guy on the right is Bro. Crandall himself. All the guys that work here are just so cute. They are obviously so passionate about what they do and seem to be quite knowledgeable about printing presses in general.

 So, basically this place is pretty legit. I think we're going back two more times to learn... more about printing (obviously I don't know what it is that we're going to learn). But if you think it looks cool, you should definitely go! It's $4 per person, but you have to have at least 15 people. Their real presentation lasts about two hours, they said (we didn't have that much time, so I'm assuming that's why we're going back). It would definitely be worth the $4!! 

275 E. Center Street, Provo

Stay tuned for our next visit in a few weeks!