makeready
- noun
- /ˈmeɪkəˌrɛdi/
- Specialized
- The process of setting up a letterpress machine is traditionally known as a "makeready": paper is loaded, ink levels tested and modified, pressure refined, and proofs run.
- makeready process
Examples
-
Before starting the print run, the team spent several hours on the makeready, adjusting the ink levels and paper feed.
-
To set it up, you'd put your paper in the front end, set it up to run through okay, and then you'd have to do what's known as a "makeready."
Academic text (2016) -
Press-machinists happily describe in detail the makeready process.
Academic text (2016) -
Of course, the end result mattered (which after all is what made a good printer), but a press machinist's focus is almost completely on the presses themselves and the hard work and craft of the makeready, all coming to fruition once the press is in operation.
Academic text (2016) -
Like the nineteenth-century shoe lasters described by Irwin Yellowitz, the specific hand skills required in the makeready process gave these press machinists an edge, a golden chip for union bargaining, and a strong sense of an acquired skill.
Academic text (2016) -
Letterpress and lithographic printer Glenn MacKellar, who was apprenticed at the Gov much later, in 1973, described the letterpress makeready process in a reverent tone: #
Academic text (2016) -
A skilled press machinist often takes great pride in the makeready process, ensuring that everything is set for a smooth production.
-
The success of the print job depends heavily on the meticulous makeready preparations made before operating the machine.
How Ready
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Makeready comes from the simple combination make + ready, literally meaning 'make ready'. It brings to mind someone checking and adjusting a machine, especially a printing press, until everything is set and correct. That's why makeready means the final preparations and small adjustments before production begins.