L Letterpress and Epic 6 - A review

Product Review:
L Letterpress system 
Save your money for something else.







Thursday, I was lured into an impulse buy at Spotlight's 20% off sale. I stumbled on the L Letterpress system designed to be used with the Epic Six die cut tool from QuicKutz. I've always loved the look of letterpress and the idea of a consumer grade version sent me over the moon. Because it was a one day only sale, I bought on impulse investing $160AUD in the tools, as well as another $120 or so in inks, papers, cleaning projects and extra printing plates.  Huge impulse buy for me, but I was sure it was the final step in a project that I've been working on for a while...

Then I got home. Then I tried it. Then I cried.  After a brief moment of euphoria and initial success. I realized things had gone awry.

Because the L Letterpress System is relatively new to Australia, it might be worthwhile explaining how it works. It's quite similar to a diecut press like a CuttleBug or Cricut. In fact, it uses the Epic Six diecut tool as it's base.  Instead of use the cutting or embossing bases, a special base is used in combination with printing plates to deboss and ink on letterpress paper creating a crisp letterpress image... in theory.  The process is actually quite easy as shown on their website.

The problem, however, is the quality of their manufactured products. With just three prints, the included templates began to crack and flatten rendering them unusable. I had bought an additional printing plate set which also had the same problem. I immediately turned to google and found out that I wasn't alone.  Cracked plates seemed to be a problem for many people making the L Letterpress system effectively useless with its own default tools.

At $40AUD each for the supplementary printing plate sets, you would expect to get more than three prints out of them before they print and crack. Perhaps 300? There is no indication at all that for $40 you are buying a disposable product. Two of my printing plates cracked on their first use.

Sadly, I was sitting at home with cracked printing plates, a mixed quality of prints and a very grumpy demeanor. Out of the box, L Letterpress had proven a failure for me. Even worse; it was late Thursday night, Good Friday the next day, and the stores were closed for returns.

I immediately emailed QuicKutz, based in the US. Without any questions, they offered to replace the damaged plates free of charge. Their online returns policy leads me to believe this is quite a common problem for them. The customer service is the one redeeming element in this story. Of course, getting new plates means waiting for days or weeks for new templates to arrive in Australia. And given that four of the six templates I used had cracked, I was wholly concerned that I'd have the same problem with replacement plates.

What I learned from this experience is that the L Letterpress tool is  a consumer grade tool which performs more like a cheap toy at Christmas. The box comes with bells and whistles and lots of buzz, but once it's opened and used it is very disheartening. I did further research and learned there are things you can do to improve your results but they involve investing new new tools and basically ignoring the prescribed technique. Boxcar Press, a professional letterpress company, has posted offers advice and tips to improve your results with L Letterpress.

Boxcar Press also sells custom letterpress plates which apparently aren't prone to breakage as they are manfactured with a photopolymer instead of plastic. L Letterpress, too, offer photopolymer custom plates and in a forum on the topic all but admit their standard plastic plates are prone to breakage:

"The custom printing plates that will be available through our website will be photopolymer, just like the Boxcar ones, so any fears of them cracking will be unsubstantiated."


 (See Tony's second post 12/5/2009 1:47:42 PM)

In the end, ordering new plates to fix an out of the box problem felt like a cop out. Although I eventually want to do custom letterpress, I want to know that the system I have is durable and reliable. I concluded my L Letterpress system was faulty and opted to return it, the Epic Six, and my unopened supplies to Spotlight where I received $220AUD back. I didn't take my opened products with me which were 3 tubes of paint, some paper and cleaning cloths. So all together, I am out of pocket roughly $60AUD.

Kudos to the Spotlight staff for being so gracious and unquestioning of my faulty product return. Another redeeming customer service element to this story. As the items are new for Spotlight they were also very interested in the printouts I brought from assorted blogs and flickr highlighting the recurring problem.

Below are some test prints that I did with the system with mixed results. I used only letterpress brand paper until I realized the tools were well and truly broken. Then I opted to do a few final prints on non-letterpress paper to see how letterpress worked as a stamping device. Then I returned it. The images look much better on the blog than the do in person. (Note: examples shown on non-letterpress paper were not done until after the plates had already cracked. I followed the directions exactly and used only L Letterpress paper and products until it was already broken)

The initial letterpress paper tests have repeated cracks and gaps in them from the tool problems. If you look at them over time, you'll also notice the depth of the debossing became shallower and shallower as the printing plates flattened over time. I'll admit that I'm new to letterpress, so I expected some problems that would improve over time as my technique improved, but instead the results demonstrably showed the flaws with the system.

It was a learning experience.
An impulse buy.  One I'd suggest you not make.
Badskirt's advice: L Letterpress System - Do Not Buy.

Do you have experience with any letterpress tools? Maybe you've had more success with L Letterpress than I did? Maybe there's something else on the market or a reputable shop in Sydney that you work with?  I'd love to find another alternative.