Reading from screens sucks ass.
My printer is Xerox Phaser 3020. It's cheap as fuck. Toner cartridges are quite expensive, but you can purchase compatible toner and a chip and manually replace the toner. Every 3 times you change the toner you'll have to replace a drum too.
I buy A5 papers from a local store for cheap.
I print a pdf, then I use a device like the one in the picture to hold the pages together. I apply a layer of white, plastic glue and let it dry. Then I make multiple cuts in the side and apply another layer of glue. Then I drill three holes in the side and tie the pages tightly with a fishing string. Then I use a large, hard piece of cardboard and a bone folder to make a cover.
It's ghetto as fuck, but it works
quality thread and another question
How expensive it is to get small batch of my poems, about 70 books, printed with some things printed intaglio? Are there any writefags?
I actually have about 3 or 4 poem collections from unknown poets from 1920s, but in every bigger city you had numerous presses back then, so it was no problem and probably was cheap too. I don't want to to go above 100 and also don't want to publish it as I want it to be both a gift to my literary friends and memento for lovers.
Not that I'm avid reader, but I could never read a single book on screen. It has to be paper and your method is fantastic, but probably expensive for really long books (500+).
>It's ghetto as fuck, but it works
It ain't no ghetto, rather smart ass.
>>8531 Pretty slick. How do the pages look near the binding when the book's open? Do they have that sort of pinched look from the fishing string, or does it look similar to a commercially sewn book?
>>8532 I don't know, but I can tell you that if you want actual intaglio prints included, it's going to raise the price dramatically. Do you already have the copper plates you want printed, or would you be asking someone to create the plates from a drawing or something?
>>8549 You're talking about hiring two separate people, then, an artist and a(n art) printer. Unless you can find a student artist who has the talents you want and who can (surreptitiously) use his uni's printmaking studio to run off copies, anyway. Professional artists (except maybe for lithographers) don't do their own prints anymore, they just etch the plates and send them off to a master printer who actually does the prints.
Assuming you found a starving artist who was willing to work for the equivalent of (U.S.) minimum wage, or was just really passionate about your project, I'd assume an A5-sized plate with a moderately sophisticated image on it would take about 5 or 6 hours to create. Blank plates of that size run anywhere from $15-$50, depending on whether you use zinc (which can have an unappealing "grain" to it) or good-quality copper. Assuming 5 hours per image at $8/hr + $50 for each plate and other supplies (resist, acid bath, solvents, etc.) that'd be $90 (U.S.) per completed plate. Assuming, again, that you can find an artist willing to work for peanuts. And there are some.
I'm not sure what a run of 70 prints would cost. There are places that train printmakers; perhaps you could cut a deal with one if you were willing to have an apprentice make your prints.
>>8532 >>8557 I know very little about printing, but what I read about intaglio printing suggests it's more a method for making prints then an actual style of design. That is, you should be able to make something look like an intaglio print while using a regular copy machine. Depending on how close you want the likeness to be you might need to use a commercial machine that can do very fine detail, but that's probably way cheaper than having plates made for a one off run.
Although, a closer reading of the wikipedia article brings to light "Photogravure", which is supposed to be a method for turning (black and white) photos into plates for use in printing. If you want to use intaglio printing then that might be one method of doing it without astronomical labour costs.
>>8561 >what I read about intaglio printing suggests it's more a method for making prints then an actual style of design.
Correct. But the method tends to result in a certain "look" for the prints. You could call it a style. It's probably possible to mimic it without doing actual intaglio.
So far I've been printing short books, up to about 600 pages. My next big project would be printing CLRS's Introduction to Algorithms. A5 pages may be too small for this book for some, but I find it readable. I will have to build a taller jig, though.
You do initially have to buy a lot of stuff (toner, glue, paper), but overall I'd say it's very cost effective. I'll share some pictures soon.
I bought my printer from a local store, but your best bet is probably Amazon, and I was pretty fucking stupid not to check there first. You can buy Amazon gift cards anonymously online with Bitcoin and order things to some location (not your own house), or, even better, pay a friend to order it for you.
I couldn't find the Xerox Phaser 3020 on Amazon, but it's a rather shit printer anyway. I was to lazy to fuck around with CUPS on Linux to get the printer to work, so I just use an old Windows XP laptop as a printing server.
Here are some of the things you should look for in a printer: A rather cheap price, dirt fucking cheap toner cartridges, only black and white (you don't need any other colors) and, preferable, no WiFi cancer.
This one matches my criterias, but shipping outside the US for it costs about $90:
https://www.amazon.com/Brother-HL-L2300D-Monochrome-Printer-Printing/dp/B00NQ1CLTI Actual double sided printing (without you having to refeed the paper to the printer) may be very comfy, but will probably raise the price. Check for second hand stuff also.
Well, unfortunately I don't have a camera at the moment.
To be honest it looks kinda shitty. Pages don't look pinched or wrinkled from the fishing string, not even near the binding, but it looks unprofessional. While printing the first book I've done (Daniell and Collard's First Year Latin) I made many mistakes (including applying glue to both sides of the book, god damn I'm fucking retarded) so it looks wrinkly. But I've learnt a few things, and printing the second book (Mencius Moldbug's A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations) was a straight forward process. Also, I didn't add a cover for the first book right away, which probably made it even more wrinkly. A better idea for a cover might be to take a piece of thin (but hard) wood and glue it to the first and last pages (which should be empty). It wouldn't wrinkle that way.
>>8599 Glad to be of help.
Font size totally depends on you. I have a tiny copy of Atlas Shrugged (Happy Hanuka) that I can read perfectly well, but other people complained to be too small. You could probably take pdfs with miniscule letters (such ass CLRS) and make them bigger using advanced software (I think there's a program named Spectre or Calibre or something) but I've never used anything of that sort.
By the way, if anyone else does this please share your process and results.
>>8557 >>8561 >>8566 I haven't really talked about it with anybody expect the guy who sells me books. I didn't talk about intaglio with him tho, he only said that smaller batch, if I want to print in commercial press, would be way more expensive than bigger (ot they won't even consider it) and since I want each book to be unique, even more. The book being uncut?(pic related) would add to price too I guess. And these I unfortunately consider mandatory.
I'll just look through uni's if there's someone willing to potentionally cut a deal I guess.
>that'd be $90 per completed plate
That's a lot. With some social engineering or the artist being her, it could be $30-$50 and I could also sell some prints to collectors. But even then, it's at least 2x the average wage.
>apprentice make your prints
Wouldn't mind.
>photogravure
Will look at how it differs irl. If it's siginificantly cheaper it may be a solution. I can compromise on this.
Reading from screens sucks ass.
My printer is Xerox Phaser 3020. It's cheap as fuck. Toner cartridges are quite expensive, but you can purchase compatible toner and a chip and manually replace the toner. Every 3 times you change the toner you'll have to replace a drum too.
I buy A5 papers from a local store for cheap.
I print a pdf, then I use a device like the one in the picture to hold the pages together. I apply a layer of white, plastic glue and let it dry. Then I make multiple cuts in the side and apply another layer of glue. Then I drill three holes in the side and tie the pages tightly with a fishing string. Then I use a large, hard piece of cardboard and a bone folder to make a cover.
It's ghetto as fuck, but it works