Direct from the Paper Mill

I had a friend ask me where I buy my paper when I do short run letterpress work. Since most of the local paper suppliers don’t carry the various colors that I like to use, I order directly from the mill. I know a lot of fine letterpress printers like to use actual art paper, like Arches, but I haven’t had a job that called for that quality or had that kind of budget. One of these days . . .

As of right now I have only ordered paper from two online suppliers, Fox River and French Paper. If you weren’t aware of the paper mills that you can order directly from, here is my short list. Even if you don’t do your own printing, these sites might come in handy if your local paper supplier doesn’t carry the stock that you would prefer.

Fox River (www.foxriverdirect.com) and Gilbert Paper (www.gilbertdelivers.com)
I have had good success using Fox River’s Sundance 80 lb. cover for my letterpress work on a cylinder press. I would also like to try using Gilbert’s Oxford collection. The only problem that I have had with Fox River is that they don’t always have their stock ready to ship. I have had to wait up to a week or two at times.

Neenah Paper (www.neenahpaper.com)
With Neenah being our HOW Conference sponsor I printed our business cards and HOW bookmarks on the New Eames Furniture 120 lb. Double Thick Cover. This is the best result for deep impression letterpress printing that I have had so far. (Don’t forget that if you click on the Neenah link on our main page, you can get free shipping on paper orders and free samples if you order by the 31st.)

Nate and I also used the Eames Furniture for our AIGA 365 poster, but for that we used the Pacific Blue 80 lb. cover. We ended up having to print on the non-textured side because it was just impossible to get the large surface areas, log printing and halftones to print correctly on my 1919 Chandler & Price platen press. I think we would probably would have had more consistent results on a cylinder press, but that wouldn’t have been near as much fun.

French Paper (www.mrfrench.com)
I haven’t found a great textured French paper to do letterpress printing on as of yet, but I have to admit that I haven’t tried that hard either. I am sure some of their papers would work excellent for my larger poster work that would need a little smoother surface.

I wouldn’t consider this expert letterpress advice, but an alternative to the existing way of purchasing paper. If you know of any other mills you can order directly from, please share.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 25th, 2005 at 1:08 am and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.