Steamroller Prints

We made a couple of woodblocks to do Texas sized steam roller prints for Chalk the Block.

The master steam roller printers

are from San Antonio

We took a relief print 

by Marcus Robiason,

doctored it up in Photoshop,

and made a vector image of it online

using Autotracer.org

Milling

Steve CNCed the vector file

on plywood

Then we tried an alternative method, using the laser cutter at Xerocraft:

We laser cut the vector image

into 3 pieces of  1/4 inch  Baltic Birch plywood

The 3 laser cut pieces together,

laying on 1/2 inch Baltic Birch plywood board

Lifting the negative space from the laser cut

We used the best wood glue

After gluing, we clamped the wood pieces

using a pneumatic gun with 5/8th brad nails

For more complex sections,

we put both the positive and negative form

on a sticky back tape;

then we weeded out the negative pieces

Gluing the back of the wood

We shot brad nails 

right through the sticky paper;

the paper pulled off really easily

Finished glued piece

Then we shellacked the piece,

3 coats on front and back,

with a 50% shellac/ 50% denatured alcohol mixture

(still needs a final front coat of pure shellac)

A big thanks to David Lesser of Xerocraft, for helping us laser cut and prepare the relief woodblock!

On Oct 7th, we had the same image CNCed at FabLab El Paso:

This version is slightly different --

the two figures will be surrounded by

black in the print

Later we shellacked this piece --

3 coats, half 'n half, shellac/denatured alcohol, 

on both front and back sides,

then a full straight coat of shellac 

on the front side

2 x 4 foot big print

from the 2nd version woodblook --

Read the blog entry

on the steamroller printing experience

Marcus' CNCed woodcut 

in the upper right corner of  the FabLab El Paso exhibit

at the Rubin  Center on the UTEP campus

in El Paso

(Feb 2017)

SIDE PROJECT

Marcus Robiason originally did the below drawing for the steam roller print, but the proportions were not 2 x 4, so we went with a different image.  However, Las Cruces is not far from El Paso, so we are commissioning Reviver Printing to silkscreen an edition of 25 prints of this devil image.