Why cotton stock behaves differently

Cotton paper is mostly cotton fibre and no coating, which is why it holds a deep impression and also why it will surprise you on the second colour.

It compresses

A cotton sheet is a mat of fibre, not a compressed board. Under pressure the fibre moves, and it does not spring back completely. That is what gives letterpress its bite: the type sinks in and leaves a shadow line around the stroke. It also means the sheet is slightly thinner after the first pass, so the second colour needs its own make-ready. If you set the packing once and run both colours, the second will print lighter and slightly out of register, and you will blame the press.

It drinks

Uncoated cotton takes more ink than a coated sheet, and it takes it unevenly at the edges of a solid. We keep the ink on the stiff side and add a little varnish rather than reducer. Running wetter ink to cover evenly looks fine for the first twenty sheets and then starts to set off on the stack.

It stretches with the weather

Humidity moves cotton more than woodfree stock. On a wet week we let the paper sit in the studio for a day before printing, and we print the second colour the same day as the first if we can. A sheet that has taken on moisture overnight will not register against yesterday's impression, however careful you are.

It is hard to fold

Heavy cotton cracks along a fold. For programmes and suites we score on the Vandercook, fold once by hand against a bone folder, and accept that the fold will be soft. Anyone who tells you a 600 gsm cotton folds like a text sheet is selling something.

What we do about all of it

• Separate make-ready per colour always
• Paper in the studio the day before when possible
• Ink stiff, varnish not reducer for solids
• Score before folding over 300 gsm

None of this is exotic. It is just the difference between reading about cotton paper and printing four hundred sheets of it in a cold shed.