Printmaking Plates

Making Plates

One of the things I’d like to try at the Makerspace is printmaking, and since Brent brought in a press, and I’ve got some ink and nice paper, the next thing I need is a plate.

You can use a variety of materials to make the plates, but I’m interested in using wood, and as you can see from the photo above, one option is to use a CNC Router to do the plate. (The one in the photo is at UWM and features one of Frankie’s pizza cutters.) I’m going to first try the laser cutter for making a plate. I’ve got some half-toned artwork which I’ll do a raster etch with, and see how that goes.

If this works (and I’m sure it will, right?) we should be able to make plates that are 12″x24″ on the laser cutter, or 24″x32.5″ on the CNC Router. For anything larger than the press we’ve got we’ll need to make the print by hand, which I’ve seen done, but haven’t tried yet myself.

If anyone has experience with any of this, or wants to work on it together, let me know!