The thought of having to do letter-pressing was a little intimidating at first. We were going to be handling lead and ink. We were going to have to operate machinery. My imagination was going crazy the day before the demo. But, after hunting down the classroom and listening to the instructor who would be leading us through the process, my brain started to finally cool down.
It was actually pretty fun to craft a sentence the old-fashioned way. I can’t imagine having to put together an essay or an article, but a sentence is enjoyable. We had to lay out not only every letter we needed to use, but also every space between every word in the sentence. If the sentence was too long (like the one my partner and I were working on), a piece of lead was needed to separate the two lines of text. We also had to make sure that their wasn’t any space whatsoever between any of the pieces or else they could shift during the inking or printing.
After the instructor proofread everyone’s sentences, we got to see the machine in action. After the letter get inked up, and the paper is in place on top near the roller, you have to slowly move the roller while transferring the paper to it and not let your hand go for the ride as well. As soon as your paper pops up from under the roller, you can grab it, and then crank the roller back to it’s starting position. We each had the option to go through it twice and come out of the demo with two posters and ten fingers each. I would definitely try it again if there was an opportunity.