Last week our class ventured out to the badlands of Western Footscray for an excursion to the Melbourne Museum of Printing. The museum is run by it curator and owner Michael and his Thai bride. He was very knowledgable about the history of print, going over the history of moveable type right back to the time of Johannes Gutenberg.
Apon entering the museum we where lead straight through to a health and safety sign which we all had to individually read and take note of.. and one glance around the place could tell you why.. the place was a mess.
Michael showed us the steps that a type setter would have gone through back in the day when they were sitting out a publication.
Mid morning we went up stairs and had morning tea, consisting of a cup of tea and anzac cookie which where so packed with sugar they make your teeth hurt.
After morning tea we headed back down stair and through to the work shop.. or as I like to call it Safety Hazard Central. Some of these hazards include; bubbling molten metal with no saftey guards, metal filing stroon all over the floor, deadly planks of wood in walk ways, gas line easily openable by small children and enough dust and soot to give an asthmatic nightmares.
The work shop contained working (some not working) printing machines. Here we were taught to select the letters of our name from aset of type and place then in a clip, the letters were then molded using metal slub.
We then took a lunch break after all the strenuous work.. so I travel down the road and purchased myself a Kebab. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give the Kebab a solid 7 out of 10.
After lunch we reconviened in the workshop where our names were place together in one of the printers. We each individually got to add paper to the machine and roll it through creating a print of our names in red ink of yellow paper.
After we all got our chance to print our fantastic journey to the Printing Museum had come to a close. And with that may the battle of peak hour commence....
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