Survey & draughting
Two weeks on the water with an echo sounder and a notebook, then six at the board. Where we have leant on somebody else's data, the sheet says so.
from £2,400
Cartographic press · Appledore
Charts drawn from the ground, not from other charts.
We survey North Devon and the Bristol Channel on foot and by boat, cut the plates by hand, and pull every sheet ourselves on a 1962 Vandercook. Editions of forty to sixty. Nothing is ever reprinted.
51°03′N 004°12′W West Quay, Appledore Est. 2009
412
Nautical miles surveyed
61
Copper plates cut
1962
Vandercook No. 4
40–60
Sheets per edition
The press
Seventeen years on the same quay, printing the same estuary.
Marged Vaughan set up in the old sail loft in 2009 with a burin, a rolling press and one plate of the Torridge that took her four months. The Vandercook came two years later, off a closed newspaper works in Barnstaple, and had to be brought in through the seaward wall.
We are three people. We survey our own ground, cut our own plates and number our own editions. If a bank has moved since we last drew it, we go out and find where it moved to before we print the sheet again.
The No. 4, in elevation
Key to the sheet
Four things we do, and what each of them costs.
Copperplate engraving
Cut into 16-gauge copper with a burin and bitten where the sheet wants tone. Between 90 and 300 hours, depending how much coastline is on it.
from £4,800
Letterpress & intaglio
Pulled on the No. 4 and the rolling press, on Somerset Satin 300gsm or Zerkall Book Wove. Two to four inks, registered by eye.
£38 per sheet
Restoration & linen backing
Washing, deacidification, tissue repair and linen backing for sheets from about 1750 on. We do not redraw missing detail. A gap stays a gap.
from £180
The plates
Three sheets currently on the wall.
Bideford Bar & the Torridge
Yes Tor to High Willhays
Lundy, with the Sound
The traverse
How a commission goes, station by station.
STN 01
Reconnaissance
We walk the ground or run the line. Two weeks, usually, and a field book that comes back wet.
STN 02
Draughting
Pencil at 1:12,500, then ink. Checked against the field book twice before a burin touches copper.
STN 03
Cutting
The plate is cut by hand. There is no undo on copper, which is why station two takes as long as it does.
STN 04
The pull
Proofed, corrected, editioned, numbered. You get the working proof too, marked where we changed our minds.
On the record
What people say once the sheet is framed.
“I asked for the Taw and the Torridge at low water. I have since had to buy it twice, because a pilot walked off with the first one.”
“They spent an afternoon arguing with me about whether a bank had moved. It had moved. That is the entire reason to use them.”
“We commissioned forty for the anniversary dinner. Not one member has asked for a refund, which for our lot is remarkable.”
Commissions
Tell us what water you want on paper.
We take about six commissions a year and the book is usually open eight months out. A conversation costs nothing and we will tell you honestly if the sheet you want already exists.