Thursday, November 29, 2007

Shim-my


A while back, Debby over at Drawing the Motmot asked about my registration jig for multicolor linocuts. Specifically she wondered about my less-than-clear description of what I call "shims," but which might more accurately be called "spacers."

The low-tech rig is a sheet of masonite with 1 x 2 boards affixed squarely in one corner. On top of the 1 x 2s rest charming corner molding pieces, which serve as paper "stops" to help with alignment. The plate fits snuggly into the corner, paper goes on top against the stops... life is good.

Except that sometimes I want or need a deeper margin of clean paper around the image. (As in the ponderosa pine in progress. It's 12 x 18 inches on a 19 x 24 inch sheet of Hosho.) Enter the "shims." These are just chunks of pine, ripped in 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and 1-inch widths. I stack them up against the 1x2 rails to hold the plate a little farther from the corner.. and magically get a wider margin in the process. Cool, eh?

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