The Tuesday my press broke and I ended up relearning everything

Last month my old nipping press just gave up mid-backing, the iron plate split right down the middle after 12 years of use. I had a stack of 15 journals for the craft fair in Fayetteville and no way to flatten the spines, so I dug out my grandfather's wooden press from the basement. It took me most of that Tuesday to adjust the screws and get the pressure even, but honestly it reminded me how the old tools force you to slow down and feel the book instead of just cranking it. Anybody else ever had a machine fail and go back to something older and simpler, and did it change how you work now?

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fiona_johnson8211d ago

...and honestly that Tuesday probably taught you more about pressure and grain direction than the last two years of using the machine. There's something about having to listen to the wood creak that makes you notice things you'd been skipping over the whole time.