Dock 2 Letterpress Circa 2010-2012

 

For a number of years, this was the website for Dock 2 Letterpress.
Content is from the site's 2010 -2012 archived pages before it was purchased by High Letterpress in 2013.

2013 PRESS RELEASE

Dock 2 Letterpress Purchased by Type High Letterpress.

Well it was a good run! Dock 2 Letterpress run by Dave Eckler and Tony Zanni had a good run from 2009 until 2012 when the shop was forced from it's space. since then it has been in storage....

Until Now! We are happy to announce that Type High Letterpress has purchased the entire collection and has a new shop!

In November of 2013 Tony Zanni purchsed the entire collection that made Dock 2 such a great shop. It is now housed at Type High Letterpress at 127 Railroad St. Rochester NY. We look forward to seeing all the great things that will come out of Type High. As we close the doors on Dock 2 Letterpress, we wish Tony and Type High the best of luck as he keeps the presses running.

To all our loyal friends family and followers Thank you for the support over the years. Without you none of this would have been possible.

Please contact Tony Zanni at Type High Letterpress for all your letterpress needs and questions.
585-281-2510

 

Editor's note: Once upon a time all printing was done using type hand set in some kind of press. The output is very different from laser of ink jet printers, but it was more labor intensive. When our SEO, TNG/Earthling's Bob Sakayama first started his music production company, he used a letter press to create the logo, in which the "g" in TNG/Earthling was a g clef symbol which he replicated on his letterhead as well as "Earthling" t-shirts. He recently told me that he still has a ream of the original rag stock paper letterheads, along with the envelopes which he uses for special documents. The world has come a long way since these days, but for some applications, the vintage letterpress is still in use and is the preferred method of creating documents, flyers, etc.

 

Dock 2 Letterpress Circa 2010 -2011

 

Whether you are looking for that unique antique wood type on your poster, images on a handmade sheet or that one-of-a-kind bite that letterpress imparts in the paper, Dock 2 Letterpress can create it for you. Our amazing collection of type and presses has found a home with in the walls of the Weekend Printer, in Webster New York.

With over 30 years of letterpress and offset printing experience, Dock 2 Letterpress can easily accommodate any print job you have, whether its 2 or 20,000.

Come experience the thrill of setting real lead and wood type at our new studio.

Making Gutenburg Proud!
 
Dock 2 Letterpress is doing it's best to please the modern father of movable type. In January Dock 2 took home 8 awards from the Rochester Club of Printing House Craftsman Inc., Print Week 2010. One of the top honors of the night, the UU&I Award(Unusual, Unique and Interesting) went to Tony Zanni, the Creative Director at Dock 2, for the "We Print Neat Stuff" self promotion piece. The piece included a wood cut cover, a completley hand set composition telling about the cool stuff we have to create award winning work and a real maple leaf that was letterpress printed. Click here to see it. Dock 2 also won 3 Gold Awards, 3 Silver Awards and one Honorable Mention for various projects printed at the shop

Continuing to impress Gutenburg, Dock 2 Letterpress won 2 Laddy Awards at the Rochester Advertising Federations Addy Award Ceremonies in March of 2010. This time winning for creative work, Zanni submitted the Dock 2 Letterpress "Grand Opening Campaign" which included the save the date, invitation, drink coasters and the poster. The poster submitted was the same poster that guests at the grand opening were able to print the 4th and final color on durning the open house.

The second Laddy was given to Zanni for the "We Print Neat Stuff" self promotion piece. It is especially nice to be recognized by the creative community here in Rochester for a piece that was created completely by hand. Not a single piece was done on the computer, one of Zanni's favorite parts about designing on a lettepress. For more images of the award winner's go to the RAF site here.

 

Youthful Exuberance vs. Cagey Veteran, (How Dock 2 came about.)

It was fall of 2008 when Tony and his friend Mike Kopicki were having a cheeseburger when he mentioned I needed to see the letterpress collection of Robert Bretz. So we went back to the barn and called them up. Linda answered and come to find out she was in the process of finding a new home for her husbands collection. Robert now 83 was a librarian when the Cary Collection was in its infancy, obviously where he got into letterpress. He had stopped using the press due to some health issues so his wife was looking to reclaim the basement but wanted to keep the collection as a whole.

That is when Dave stepped in and offered to appraise the collection for her. During the next few months Tony mike and Dave inventoried the entire collection and came up with a value for the Bretz's. during this process Dave was looking for a new home for his shop Weekend Printer, and found a suitable space on a road named Publishers Parkway of all places a mere 2 blocks from his old shop. The space was inexpensive, and during the course of inventorying the collection well both Dave and tony both fell in love with the collection and the idea that it would be an amazing start to a full blown letterpress shop.

So long story short the negotiation was quick money changed hands riggers and minivans were tested moving the collection from the Bretz's basement in to our new space on Publishers parkway. The rest is really a no brainer, the building we moved in to was the old Lawyers Cooperative Publishing building, a building that at one time had huge web and sheet fed presses and a full digital short run shop in it. Abandoned by Lawyers coop some years ago the large industrial building gathered a lot of dust. Letterpress is a fairly industrial profession in its own right, our lightest floor model press is 950 pounds, Dave in one of his moments of clarity decided a good name wasDock 2 Letterpress seeing as our door is the door for DOCK 2 loading docks. And it works as our new identity!

 

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We have a full state-of-the-art bindery-well from 1968. But seriously, just like our presses everything in our bindery has been built to last. Our manually operated cutter still cuts with precision, our folders fold like no ones business and we just got a new corner rounder to add that more refined touch to your piece. Along with all this we have a full range of bindery options from stitching, padding, hole drilling and whatever else you can think of.


Other finishing capabilities you ask? We can score, die cut, perforate, number, emboss, deboss, the list goes on. We also have a full range of hand bindery options and binding tools for your most artful of letterpress projects!

Stop in and see for yourself!

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The work horse of the shop, The Original Hiedlberg, Letterset Offset Printing Press.

 

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David Eckler is the sole proprietor and president of Weekend Printer and Dock 2 Letterpress. That means he's the head pressman, press repairman and master typesetter, project designer, estimator, chief cook and bottle washer, floor sweeper and phone jockey, not necessarily in that order. Dave's been printing almost as long as he's been involved with little league baseball. Dave's career choice took place in 8th grade shop class. Soon after he set his first line of type he started collecting type and presses and working out of his Grandmother's garage on the weekends. Weekend Printer was started officially in 1978, even though he did his first revenue job on a Kelsey Hand Press in 1966.


Now Dave runs Dock 2 Letterpress and Weekend Printer out of their new 2,400 sq.ft. location on Publishers Parkway in Webster, NY. Trained as an apprentice at Brewer and Newell Printing Corporation, and pressman at Itek Graphics, he earned a Printing Management Associates Degree from RIT through evening coursework. All the while he continued to grow Weekend Printer through word of mouth and a loyal base of repeat customers.


Dave was at the right age to take advantage when everyone in the industry throwing out most of their letterpress equipment and at one time had two garage storage units an entire 1500 square foot barn full of type and presses. Now its all assembled under one roof.

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Tony Zanni on the other hand has no classic training in letterpress printing, in fact he learned letterpress from a bee keeper in a barn, who didn't have any training in letterpress printing either. What he does possess is a particular set of skills that he has gathered while taking courses in graphic design at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Graduating in 2007 from RIT with a Bachelors Degree in Graphic Design, Tony has taken to letterpress printing with a renewed fervor and glee. Glee mostly.


Funny thing about Tony's letterpress history, his collection was purchased it in 2002 from Dave. Now that its moving back into Dave's shop the question is raised will Dave refund Tony his money? Needless to say Tony's history of letterpress printing is much shorter than Dave's but what Tony brings to the table in design layout and typography skills makes up for his lack of letterpress experience. Don't be fooled though his perfectionist ways make for really good lock-ups and that gritty distressed look everyone loves letterpress for. Well mostly everyone.

 

 

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That's right, Dave has been collecting printing presses since 1966 when he bought his first Kelsey 5x8 tabletop press. Since then, the collection has grown to 11 working presses on the floor of Dock 2 Letterpress. There are several more hiding in storage in various states of repair or that are for sale.


Working in the shop and ready for use by employees and students alike, we have a 1900s Wesel Iron Handpress, a Gordon Challenge and Damon & Peets 8x12 treadle operated presses. There are 2 Pilot presses running with 3 more in storage, a Little Giant No. 5, two automatic feed Kluge's, and two V36 Miehle Vertical cylinder presses. Let's not forget our newest press to find a home at Dock 2, the Vandercook No.3 Proof press.

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Wesel Iron Handpress

Production date: 1900

Type: hand press

Max. Sheet: 18" x 24"

Max. Image 17" x 23"

Height: 6' 6"

Weight: heavy

 

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No. 3 Vandercook Proof Press

Manufactured by Vandercook & Sons, Inc., Chicago IL.

Type: Flatbed Proof Press

Maximum Sheet: 14.75” x 20”

Maximum Form: 14” x 18”

Weight: 1,000 lbs.

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V36 Meihle Vertical

Manufactured by Meihle Manufacturing Co., Chicago IL.

Type: Automatic Cylinder Press

Maximum Sheet: 14” x 20”

Maximum Form: 13” x 19”

Weight: 1800 lbs.

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Little Giant No. 5

Manufactured by American Type Foundry, Jersey City, NJ.

Type: Automatic Cylinder Press

Maximum Sheet: 12” x 18”

Maximum Form: 11.5” x 17.5”

Weight: 2,020 lbs.

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Kluge 10 x 15 Platen Press

Manufactured by Kluge Brandjandt, Inc., St. Paul MN.

Type: Automatic Platen Press

Maximum Sheet: 10” x 15”

Maximum Form: 11” x 14”

Weight: 1,000 lbs.

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Challenge Gordon 8x12 Platen Press

Manufactured by Challenge & Sons, Inc., Grand Haven, MI.

Type: Hand Feed Platen Press

Maximum Sheet: 8” x 12”

Maximum Form: 7” x 11”

Weight: 900 lbs

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Damon & Peets 8x12 Platen Press

Manufactured by Challenge & Sons, Inc., New York, NY.

Type: Hand Feed Platen Press

Maximum Sheet: 8” x 12”

Maximum Form: 7” x 11”

Weight: 900 lbs.

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Chandler & Price Pilot Press

Manufactured by Chandler & Price Inc., Cleveland OH.

Type: Hand Feed Platen Press

Maximum Sheet: 7” x 10”

Maximum Form: 6” x 9”

Weight: 90 lbs.

 

 

From time to time around the shop we get a little bored, scratch our chins and say "what else can we do?". After a quick trip to Ikea, we came up with the idea of printing posters and applying them to the tops of tables, thanks to the Ikea "LACK" end tables.

The tables here are our first attempts at doing so. They came out much better than I could have ever imagined. It tooks some testing of different adheisives, and different color combinations but what we ended up with are pretty cool (we think so anyway).

What we did was hand set and print a collage of wood type in 5 different colors, blue, green, purple, orange and black. We then argued over what colors worked best together and what would look best on the 2 different color tables. We picked the black finish and birch finished tables and headed to the hardware store to figure out how to coat them.

Pictured here are the end results. We used a product called GlazeCoat to seal in the prints on the tables. It is the same 2 part epoxy that bars and restaurants use to coat bar tops and tables. It is close to 1/8 inch think on the tops of the tables. It's a super shiny top coat, super durable, and let's the prints shine through. Each table is unique, none of the color combinations are the same. each piece is finished by hand and like all of our stuff available for sale in our Etsy shop.

We learned a lot this first time through and hope they take off so we can experiment more and make some more. We hope you like them as well.

 

Here at Dock 2 Letterpress, we use old stuff to make new stuff. Our collection of over 1,000 cases of lead and wood type, combined with hundreds of dingbats, borders and other images will make whatever project you have distinct and stand out in this digital world.

We hand set every peice of type, border, and image on our Vandercook Proof Press or C&P Platen Press, for that authentic letterpress design. Some of our type is over 100 years old, it’s not perfect and that’s what will make your job look perfect. Take a look at some of our wood type here.

Posters, coasters, invitations, business cards, are just the beginning of what we can design for you. Email or call us at 585.872.5050 to get started on your project.

Dock2Letterpress.com