Making new out of the old

The arrival of the dissembled pieces of a foot-operated Harrild Imperial Octavo platen was a poignant moment for Kiss & Bite. Totnes-based letterpress enthusiast Chris Lavery owned the beautiful vintage machine but sadly died after agreeing to collaborate with us.

The press was manufactured in about 1895 and originally came from a print shop in Plymouth’s Barbican, along the waterfront from Ocean Studios. Although ancient by new tech standards, it will play its part in modernising letterpress at Kiss & Bite.

It was engineered to create tremendous pressure across the whole surface area of the platen, meaning that we can print an extensive area of deep colour and impression across all the paper surface (the paper size for an Imperial Octavo is 21 cm x 29 cm). This is ideal for printing backgrounds and solids on greeting cards, flyers and postcards.

We will also make our own thermoplastic plates and laser-cut acrylic shapes and characters that can withstand enormous pressures so they can also be used on the press and offer new creative opportunities.

The video at the top of the story shows the first printing attempt after the rebuild - it worked perfectly!

Although built nearly 130 years ago (check out the original marketing material below), the Harrild will live on and be reinvented in a new tech era.