adventure is my middle name

No change of address or vocation is complete without calling cards announcing the change, so I took it upon myself to make my own on my trusty Gocco.   Of course, I had to blur out some of my details above to protect the innocent, so you can't see the typeset very clearly.   But if I see you in person and sense that 1) you are generally trustworthy; and 2) the type of fellow or lady who would enjoy a good ol' fashioned pen pal, then I may just hand you one of these.  At that point you can inspect my handiwork and comment -- or judge -- accordingly.

After the jump, more photos and some of my methods.

Above: calling cards drying in the Gocco drying rack 

As I've learned the hard way, using the Gocco to print business cards is extremely hard work.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, the Gocco is a wondrous but sometimes temperamental machine, and I'm still learning my way through some of the tricks of the trade.

The most significant problem in taking on Gocco as a hobby is that the supplies are limited and have recently increased in price.  In my effort to find a more cost-effective way to Gocco, for this particular project I tried using Stencil Pro's screens, which burn an image using sunlight or fluorescent light instead of the crazy lead contaminating Gocco bulbs. Unfortunately, the two test screens I made didn't produce screens worth any salt at all.  But, just for posterity, here's what I did:

Print an image onto a transparency, thusly:

Then, burn your image.  The Stencil Pro screen is a hot pink, 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of plastic that you cut down to the size of the image.  Then, you place the screen down on Stencil Pro's frame, and then put your image master (for me, it's my calling card, above).  Then, Stencil Pro says you're supposed to expose the image to a light source, preferably sunlight, for a designated period of time.  I'm pretty sure this step is where I'm messing up -- I think I need to be exposing my screens for a longer period of time, and I need to stop making such tiny designs like calling cards.  See below:

 

Next, develop your image.  Stencil Pro wants you to develop your screen in water, so I poured about two cups into a Pyrex measuring cup.  And waited.  And waited.

 

Mount the screen onto a frame.  Another Gocco enthusiast built a little frame from cereal boxes.  I used an old Gocco screen and cut out the actual screen part, leaving just the frame:

 

and then, using masking tape, I mounted the screen onto the Gocco screen.  It's important to remember to line up the screen so that it's straight.  That way, when you print, you don't have to worry about realigning the paper you're printing your image onto:

 

Follow the remaining steps as if using a regular Gocco screen -- ink the screen, insert it into the machine, and go!

Now, theoretically, this all should have worked for me, but for whatever reason, after I inked the screen, I found that the screen didn't print all the type or the image in its entirety.  It was mega disappointing.  I'm going to keep tweaking it, and as soon as I figure out the problem, I'll update you.  In the meantime, I'm looking forward to handing out my new calling cards, and maybe all my toils and troubles in making them can be our little secret, k?