Guardbooks

Delivery has been taken of the boxes for our precious guardbooks... they are much happier now! Thank you to Carronvale Bindery and to our wonderful volunteers for their tireless catalguing and cleaning...

Games Week 2011

Well the weather was kind for most of the week and Smail's did very well selling a new bespoke range of notepads, scrapbooks and fridge magnets. The window won second prize in the window dressing competition. Our theme this year was 25 years of Games Week Windows... celebrating Smail's 25 years in the care of the National Trust for Scotland. We have always been set a high standard by original shop manageress Isobel Brunton, and we are very grateful for her suggestions and loan of photographs this year.

Thanks to Rachel and Ailsa for their hard work putting it in and to Tom for the much appreciated bacon rolls!



There was more success in the Fancy Dress Parade when our Printer's De'ils won first prize... WELL DONE GIRLS!

Wharfedale, Woodworm & Workshops

Well it has been a busy few months...

We continue on the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum Donor Book...
The Burns Museum in Alloway, Ayrshire has had an extensive makeover since it was taken over by the National Trust for Scotland and the wonderful new visitor centre is now open to the public. This was only possible because of the donations from many individuals and organisations.
Earlier this year over 50 very heavy packages arrived at the Printing Works. These contained the names for the memorial book of all these wonderful donors. The names were set on a Monotype hot-metal type setter by Harry McIntosh at Speedspools.
The correct leading (inter-line space) is added and then the pages are imposed in the Case-room at Smail’s. The book has to be set, proofed, imposed and printed a section at a time due to limited chases and leading making it a very slow process. The pages are being printed on our Wharfedale press, which decided it wasn’t very happy early in July. Thanks to Tony and Eric they have persuaded it to print again (it is amazing what they can do with spit, string and lots of loving attention!)
The first section is complete and the title pages look beautiful with the burnished gold borders printed on high quality paper. Make-ready for printing is more complicated than you might expect as the position of the printed material had to move progressively so that when the pages are folded together for binding the margins line up properly. Once completed the book will be sent to Carronvale Bindery, where it will be traditionally bound, and then it will be finally be placed in the Museum. Unfortunately it has taken much longer than we originally anticipated... the overwhelming support for the project saw more than twice the number of names we expected. Whilst this is brilliant, the collation etc. took longer and once the timing slipped into our visitor season, the time to print has become severely limited. We will get there and I hope, once complete, people will forgive us the wait.

http://www.nts.org.uk/video

Here is piece to accompany 'Hives of Industry' article in the latest Trust Magazine...
www.nts.org.uk/video

Robert Smail's Virtual Tour

http://www.nts.org.uk/Learn/virtual_smails.php

pARTicipate in Print, 6 November 2010

The third of our workshops brought us back to the Printing Works for a day of getting hands on with Letterpress. This workshop allowed participants to get more involved with type, beyond our standard tour. It was a hugely over subscribed so we shall be doing it again!

Robert Smail and Sons

Robert Smail and Sons in Innerleithen, Scotland, was entrusted to the National Trust for Scotland in 1986, after 120 years of trading.
Smail's is now the last fully functioning Victorian letterpress print works left in Scotland, an industrial time capsule, it is a precious remnant of our history, a vital working example of how printing used to be done before the advent of computers.
Robert Smail's print works hails from a time when most small towns and villages would have had their own print works to meet all the communities publishing needs, it is a key part of the history of the printed word in Scotland.