One fire, one bar of steel, three tempers.
Every blade in this shop passes through the same three stages, and each one asks for a different kind of attention — long, patient work at the anvil, a few unforgiving seconds in the quench, and a final read of the numbers before it's called done. Nothing here is rushed to fit a schedule; the steel sets the pace.
The Draw
Steel comes out of the fire at a dull orange and gets drawn thin under the power hammer — this is the column doing the visual heavy lifting, so it gets the widest basis and the only image.
The Quench
A fast drop into oil locks the grain before it has a chance to relax back out. Get the timing wrong by even a second and the temper won't hold — this column carries the supporting explanation at a comfortable reading width.
"Quench too slow and you've just made an expensive poker."
1500°F
Forge temp at draw
3×
Folds per billet
11 hrs
Start to temper
Four ways onto paper.
Wedding & Event Suites
Invitations, place cards, and menus, composed and pressed as a matched set.
Business Stationery
Letterhead, cards, and notebooks that hold up to a signature and a coffee ring.
Fine Art Prints
Small-run broadsides and posters, numbered, from our own woodcuts and type.
Custom Dies & Foil
Blind embossing, foil stamping, and hand-painted edges for a finished piece.
Two presses, one alley, no shortcuts.
Anvil & Ink started in a two-car garage with one broken proof press and a box of mismatched type bought at an estate sale. Eleven years later the garage is a proper alley shop, but the pace hasn't changed — everything still gets composed by hand before it ever touches a cylinder.
We think a printed page should carry proof of the work: the slight bite of an impression, the texture of cotton paper, ink that was mixed that morning to match a swatch and nothing else. If you want something flat and fast, a laser printer will always be faster than we are. We're fine with that.
running the presses
of cast type on hand
Chandler & Price platens
“Slow is the whole point.”
— painted above the composing bench, first week we opened
Every letter set by hand. Every page pressed, not printed.
We compose from cast lead type and hand-mixed ink, then run each sheet through cast-iron presses old enough to have printed someone else's wedding invitations. You can read the impression with your fingers.
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Six things that don't change.
Cast lead & wood type
Set letter by letter, the way it was done before phototype existed.
Cotton & pulp stocks
Thick, toothy paper chosen for how deep it lets an impression sit.
Hand-mixed oil ink
Batched to match that morning, never pulled from a stock cartridge.
Cast-iron presses
A Vandercook proof press and two Chandler & Price platens, all pre-1970.
Small batch runs
Twenty-five to five hundred sheets, and then we tear the form down.
Foil + letterpress
A deep impression running underneath a bright, hand-fed foil pass.
Bring us your words. We'll bring the ink.
Studio visits run about forty-five minutes — you'll see the type cases, pick a paper stock, and watch a proof come off the press before you commit to anything.
Studio
Anvil & Ink
Hours
Tue–Sat, 10–5
Alley
118 Foundry Row
Phone
(555) 014-2209
Lead time
2–3 weeks