million rectangles (II)

once the plates were put together

i went on to use a hand plane to scrape off the finish from the wood (i would have sanded it off but the wood shop is pretty strict with how the tools are used, and being that i was using salvaged wood i wasn't allowed to use the nice big sander).
after i scraped the plates i used the table saw with a dado blade to cut half inch grooves that made the grid of 144 rectangles (12x12 in case you didn't want to count).
i made four plates thinking that i would need that many, but after i started printing i realized that two was enough. these are the plates stacked on the printing press with a felt blanket underneath (the blanket is used to protect the press).
this is a block of wood that i salvaged from the scrap bin and modified with the thought that i would use it to align the paper on the plate.
another view of my alignment block... it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth and i aligned the paper by touch with my fingers.