PRINTING:

“…How to ‘Bulk Print’ leaflets for Almost Nothing…”

Article by Malcolm MacLean © 2008

I’d like to introduce you to an idea I accidentally discovered some years ago. There are two ways in which you can look at this article.

• To keep your own printing costs down

Or

• To perhaps set up a small printing/leaflet distribution business

As mentioned in the ‘advertising article’ Having leaflets printed and distributed around your local area is one of the best methods for obtaining new clients and kick starting your new business, no matter what type of local business/service you are going to offer.

The known methods of printing are of course ‘offset printing’ or photo copying or printing straight off your home computer using the printer.

The reality is, if you are going to print 5,000 leaflets (and most likely) this will be done on quite a regular basis, then your home computer/printer setup is absolutely no good at all, that’s far too much for a home setup to do.

Photocopying will be too slow and also too expensive.

Offset Printing will be the main and only choice, but again this can get expensive.

REMEMBER – with leaflet drops, it’s the bulk that gets you the business… It simply becomes a percentage game…. If you deliver 5,000 leaflets, you can be assured of a percentage result.

Back in the late 1960’s early 1970’s photo copy machines were introduced. You probably know that if you are around my age but if you are quite young then you may not know it.

BUT before the time of the photocopying machine, to get ‘bulk’ print jobs done and at a reasonable cost (not offset printing) – almost every company used machines that were called Duplicating Machines.

Without getting too technical, they worked like this.

1. You typed up your letter/sales ad using a type writer.
2. In the type writer you inserted a ‘stencil’
3. The type writer would cut the stencil as you typed.
4. The stencil was then put onto the duplicating machine
5. Whether, by hand or automatically, this machine would then reproduce copies of that letter.

The ink from the rollers on the machine would flow through the stencil onto special paper which was quite absorbent, and copies would be made. These machines (some of them anyway) could knock out 10,000 copies an hour….

This is a photo of one of these old machines:

Now, this was a really cheap method of printing, but the draw backs were that you had to use a type writer and the letter was a little basic in the design department.

Now here is the good bit:

I found a way to use some old technology (Duplicating Machine) – and combine the use of modern technology (Computer and Printers)

This is what I did……and what you can do too…..

• 1. Use your computer to design your new leaflet.
• 2. Do not use big blocks in your design i.e. white wording with heavy ‘black blocks’ (solids)
• 3. When you are satisfied with your design, use a ‘Dot Matrix Printer’ – Take the ribbon completely out of the machine.
• 4. Insert the ‘stencil’ into the printer and hit the print button on your computer.

What you will be doing is ‘cutting’ a stencil … to your own design using the computers printer (It has to be a Dot Matrix Printer… Ink jet or laser is no good…. And when obtaining a dot matrix printer, get a 24 pin one.

There are millions of these old dot matrix printers around…and no one wants them any more…..

Now, with your newly cut stencil, attach it to the old duplicating machine you have obtained and start printing!!!

The only cost you have is the paper and the ink….

When I developed and combined the above technologies, this gave me the ability to print in bulk…. At almost no cost at all, or at least very negligible cost to me.

As I said, these machines can print thousands of copies an hour.

Your leaflet will look as good as you designed it using your computer and you now have the ability to print 1,000’s of copies.

There are a couple of things to watch out for when using this method to print.

Because these days the paper you will be buying is generally photo copy paper and is not very absorbent, when printing, do not disturb the printed copies for at least a few hours. Give the finished product ‘time to dry’

If you go straight in and move the paper, you will smudge all of the copies.

Another thing to avoid is printing too many copies at once. If the stack of copies starts to get high enough, they will offset onto the back of each leaflet due to the weight.

With a bit of practice, you’ll be very good at this in no time and your printing costs will be very minimal.

TYPES OF DUPLICTING MACHINES AND WHERE TO GET THEM:

The three main manufacturers of these little machines were:

Gestetner

Roneo Vickers

Rex Rotary

There were others but I can’t remember the names off the top of my head.

These machines have not been made for about 40 years, so you are going to have to do a little hunting around to find one. BUT there were millions of these machines produced and plenty of them are still around and in working order (not that much that could go wrong with them)

AUCTIONS

For sure you will find these machines at auctions. Countries like Australia, the USA and the UK often have ex Government auctions specializing in old office equipment.

NO ONE wants these old machines, most people wouldn’t even know what they are. I have purchased hundreds of these machines in times past and I never paid more than $5 for any of them.

You could ask around in your town. Places like Real Estate agents or similar types of businesses. Quite often they will have one or more of these stored in some back room. The owner probably forgetting that he ever had it. They in most cases will be glad to get rid of it and give it to you.

There you have it. Your very own Printing Setup for almost nothing!

END

FOOTNOTE

I should just add a little to the above article for those who might go out to buy one of these old machines.

What I have described above was for making ‘Paper Stencils’ using a computer and dot matrix printer.

There were other methods in those times to make stencils.

One of them was a stencil making machine called (if memory serves me well) an

‘Electrostatic Stencil Cutting Machine’

This machine used a kind of vinyl stencil and made these stencils from your original art work.

Basically, you put your art work on one side of the cylinder, the stencil on the other side, start the machine and it would spin around and cut the new stencil.

These stencils would last a long time for long print runs.

I mention this now because if you are at an auction, the chances are that these machines will also be there along with the duplicators and it’s worth your while to pick them up too.

Lastly, keep an eye out for stencil and ink supplies…. Buy every thing you can. It won’t be expensive and you can’t buy these supplies over the counter any more.

Cheers

Malcolm

Article by Malcolm MacLean © 2008

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