Back In The Studio

For the past few months, I've been working on my father's autobiography, which he wrote for the family. It runs to some 178 pages, including lots of photos, and will be printed and bound by a local company for family members. Not a miniature book, I hasten to add.
     It speaks to another time, a slower way of life before all the electronic gadgetry, and to a time when the youth of the free western world was actively engaged in fighting to preserve that freedom, when letters often didn't make it home to their loved ones and neither did their authors. 
In the late 1940s and early 1950s the hardship and disillusionment of those who did return, their efforts to build their own 'brave new world', their determination that they and their children would have a better life are recorded within this book and echoed in families throughout the world. My father will be 91 this year, and this book gives insight into a twentieth-century way of life that has almost disappeared, so quickly has our society changed.
     So now, having handed off the files, I'm free to think about a new book. Some things never change!  And...I've been playing with my new press, an Ettan etching press, 12" x 24", lightweight but strong.

It weighs only 40lb but is robust, and has two pressure gauges, and although it isn't geared, is easy to use, doesn't require a huge amount of effort to crank the handle. I'm very pleased with it so far.
More about the press and learning to use it later....
I was going to link to the Ettan site, seems their domain has expired, so here's a link to the Daniel Smith page.
Edit July 3,2011: Ettan site up and running again, http://www.ettanpress.com/page/etching_press.html