How to prepare and print a small intaglio drypoint
Jessica's instructions for preparing and printing an etching plate. Full instructions behind paywall.
I visited Anchor Press in Milwaukee, in October 2025 before their move to their new space. My goal was to get qualified on using their small etching press, so I can chug through some small edition plexiglass drypoint plates I built up over COVID.
I got a full walk through of Jessica's etching process, including paper setup, press setup, plate inking technique, and how to flatten and dry prints, and how to clean up. These are my notes from that session.
You're welcome to freely use and remix these notes, commercial or otherwise. I'm assuming as a fine artist you will be selling your work at some point, and I'm fine with that.
These notes are no substitute for an in-person press orientation, and don't cover any of the other presses. After my orientation, Jessica requested that I only work while someone else was present, in case I had additional questions, missed a step, or equipment got moved.
This is to preserve the value of direct linking to the material. Another way to say that is, I'm hoping this prevents AI-regurgitation, hallucination, lack of attribution, and incorrect instructions or the reformatting and presenting within search engines (google, looking at you).
The top of the notes is not behind the free 'paywall', so you get a sense of specifics you might be interested in, and whether it's worth your time to subscribe.
When to work
Drop-ins are currently only available at AP3 on Tuesday nights, 5:00pm – 9:00pm. The Tuesday rate as of October 20, 2025 was $25.00.
Additional info about drop-in time
The AP3 website said Thursdays were also available, but when I dropped in, there wasn't a shop manager available, and paying press members were having a crit session of their work, so making additional noise would have been impolite for a drop-in person.
In practice, if Julia is opening the shop, she's coming from work nearby, so the press won't be available until a little after she gets out of work, so 5:15 pm is more reasonable.
The $25.00 rate was open to re-negotiation; the new space is more expensive, and the press hadn't worked out yet how to cover this. I'm assuming it's possible the rate will go up as part of the plan, but I'm not in regular contact.
Create your workspace
AP3 studio equipment is reconfigurable. You are welcome to move unused tables and gear that is on rollers into your optimal setup, so everything is close at hand and efficient during printing.
For example, you will want a space for your ready-to-print paper, ink prep and process, press and print flattening. So you can roll a glass top ink table to the distance that works for you, and a clean paper table adjacent to that, and a place to catch and flatten your prints adjacent to that.
Press preparation
Use the small etching press. The large one tends to be used for woodcut.
The two screws that set the small press height are generally dialed in to be level, and point in the same direction when things are level.
The press bed is covered in a thin clear sheet of plastic. Tuck any registration visual guides below, and re-seat the plastic.
Roll the press bed back towards you, so there is space for your plate, and additional space for blankets.
Open up (counter-clockwise) each side's screw a total of 3 or 4 full turns, taking care to alternate each screw a full turn as you go. When you are done, the top pins should be pointing in the same direction.
Grab some clean newsprint from the roll of newsprint atop the nearby table (towards the door from the etching press). The roll holder is grey painted metal, and the holder is mounted to the table top.
Grab some felt / synthetic blankets from the clear plastic bin with a white top, under the glass top roller table behind you (away from the door).
Jessica recommends the new synthetic weave blankets. They are are clean and good quality. Besides being the newest and cleanest, when you look at a cross section of the blanket edge, they have a zig-zag of synthetic weave working through the centerline of the edge of the blanket (the cross section looks like nap-weave-nap). You can select whatever blankets you like though.
Lay the blanket(s) so they just catch under the press roller. Then add a sheet of newsprint to protect against stray ink on the blankets. Start to roll the press bed so it catches the blankets and paper sandwich.
Set your plate down in the center of the press bed (left to right). Add a scrap sheet of your printing paper. Smooth the blankets over your plate and paper.
Work the press roller handle to position the plate bed, so your plate is beneath the lowest point of the top roller. Working the screws together, so they face the same way as you drop them, drop both the screws of the roller until the roller is flush against the blankets. Proceed to adjust the screws until pressure is firm. Keep both pins pointed in the same direction.
Pressure adjustment description
This was adjusted to feel, so you may need some practice.
Don't crank hard, but do try to add tension in opposition until it catches firmly.
To me, it felt like when you tighten a bike wheel axle nut by hand with a short wrench, without adding force at the furthest point of the wrench with the most mechanical advantage.
Wiggle-waggle (jog) the press roller handle to check the fit is snug and that there are no changes to the screws or pressure dependent on the press bed height or gearing.
Finally, give both screws a ten minute turn (1/6th turn, described as a clock in minutes), to ensure a good platemark and ink lift.
Roll the press bed back towards you until your plate is no longer under the roller.
Now run the plate through the press and learn how it feels. When you run the plate and paper and blankets through the press bed, you should feel a short grab or bite when the paper and plate catch (requires a little more force to move the press lever), and you should feel the opposite (a short easing or jump of the press lever) when you complete the pass of the plate through the press. It shouldn't be a lot of effort overall.
Additional thoughts on registration
Jessica and I didn't cover any details of registration, since I'm going to be doing single color prints.
Because I'm assuming single color printing with black or dark brown, we didn't cover the use of button tabs or other kinds of registration, or what kinds of marks to make, or making jigs.
I used to do all my litho with tee-mark pencil registration, where one side of the paper and one side of the stone (or press bed jig had temp marks made with tape) were a precisely penciled tee (T) for top, and the other side had a vertical bar (|) and was the bottom, and you lined up the paper exactly on the stone or press jig on those lines, with the top of the paper stopping precisely at the T and matching the T on your paper, and the bottom being variable in length lined up the two | marks. You started at T and kept the paper there pressed to the stone with one hand, and dropped the paper lining up the vertical bar mark.
If you have a flexible cutting mat, it would be underneath the plastic and you could line up on that. You might indicate your paper placement with a contrasting color of flat tape.
If doing multiple colors, you could use buttons and tabs, and would want to ensure the button is lower in height than your plate, so they don't punch into blankets / prevent a clean press bed run. You would skip the plastic sheet, tape the buttons to the press bed, line up a clean plate and each piece of paper, set your tabs on the buttons, and tape each tab to the paper (and repeat).
If free-handing it, you might set a throw away jig of low profile mat board taped down to a cutting mat to make laying in the paper a no-brainer.
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