Home Printing Press

[ComradeOm]

Simply put, I'm looking for any links or resources on setting up a very small scale printing press. Something that would be suitable for churning out a few dozen posters/leaflets without costing a bomb. A small manual rig or something. Google has been surprisingly uncooperative with this

[ellipsis]

Uh i don't think anybody uses printing presses like that any more, except artisans. I would buy a cheap printer or dumpster one. I got my propaganda organ dumpstering, the people came out and gave it to me whilst i was digging!

[Sosa]

yes, a printer would be better

[ComradeOm]

What sort of printer? A simple home set-up or are there more professional offerings?

The big concern that I have with a printer is the cost of cartridges and the like

[ellipsis]

Like a cheap one for home use. Depending on how much stuff ur going to print u may not even need to buy a replacement ink cartridge.

I mean u could also do stamp printing and carve potatoes for the stamps. Make ur own paint out of beet juice and soot.

[revolution inaction]

you could get a laser printer, apparently you can get them on ebay for about £50, and you should be able to get refilled cartridges much cheaper then new ones, but you should look up the prices for them before you buy the printer.

[The Idler]

Get a commercial office high-volume printer if you're running off hundreds of copies. Don't get a consumer laser printer. Look at Hewlett Packard for starters.

[FreeEire]

Can anyone recommend a reliable, cheap laser printer which has a decent capacity for printing?

[Sasha]

i have an samsung like this one: http://rechargeguru.com/do/images/samsung_ml_1640_49071c3466334.jpg
works very good (prints a ton of prints before it runs out of ink), only black and greyscale. you can use cheap knock-off toners aslong as you put a litle tape over the protection copper connector)

[¿Que?]

I have a printer I'm not using mostly because it eats ink like crazy. I wish I could give it to you...

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

My experience has been that by far, the cheapest method of producing shit-tonnes of anything is to find a photocopy scam.
Even if you own a photocopier, maintenance, ink, toner, and paper are likely to run you around at least seven-cents per two-sided page - a printer will cost you more.
So, how do you find a copy scam?

- Learn about copiers - sometimes a factory default password (e.g. 1111) and a settings menu will let you bypass a cardreader, or whatever device you're supposed to use to pay.

- Find a copyshop that works on the honour system: either grossly "underestimate" how many copies you've made, or, if you don't plan on coming back, just walk out.

- The old Kinkos copy-counter-key-thingers are vulnerable to strong magnets. Make yr copies, reset the counter with yr magnet. Make another 10 copies, bring the counter to the counter, and cough up yr $1.

- Yr local Kinkos have the new keys? Jack one (or, better yet, get somebody who won't be using it in the future to jack one). When you go in to make copies, grab a key from the counter as normal - but make the copies on your key (the ill-gotten one). Stuff your key back in yr pack when you're about finished, make, say, 10 copies on the store counter, and pay as normal. Victory!

[¿Que?]

But seriously, unless you amass a wide readership, you don't even need to worry about that...

[Bitter Ashes]

If you even think you're going to print leaflets or the like in the future then do NOT get a inkjet/bubblejet printer. It'll cost you a fortune in ink.

Laser printers are the usual go to for high volume printing, but they can be a bit pricey to start off with. If you're not concerned about quality then maybe consider a dot matrix. They're very cheap to run, but they're also increadibly slow and noisy and you're restricted in paper choices, not to mention having noticably poor quality printing.

If you really want to go down the route of an actual printing press, then you basicly make a stamp (which is labour intensive unless you've got an expensive machine to do it for you), cover it in ink and press it onto the pages. Needless to say that it's not a very effective way of printing these days.

One thing that I have been toying with the idea of though is to use mutual aid to gain access to the proffessional printing equipment of organisations that already have them. Maybe the offering to cater for them with homebrew or cooking or the like may gain you access to thier printing presses. Mayday's coming up so maybe that'd be a good target for your offer?

[revolution inaction]

If you even think you're going to print leaflets or the like in the future then do NOT get a inkjet/bubblejet printer. It'll cost you a fortune in ink.

Laser printers are the usual go to for high volume printing, but they can be a bit pricey to start off with. If you're not concerned about quality then maybe consider a dot matrix. They're very cheap to run, but they're also increadibly slow and noisy and you're restricted in paper choices, not to mention having noticably poor quality printing.


Apparently you can get a laser printer for about £50 off ebay, which isn't bad.

[Bitter Ashes]

Wow. That is cheap! Unfortuantly that's still over a week's income for claimants on lower rates. If you can afford the laser printer definatly go for it