Dock2Letterpress

Most Of The Equipment in the Shop Has Seen More History Than the People That Run It.

David Eckler is the sole proprietor and president of Weekend Printer and Dock 2 Letterpress. That means he's the head pressman, press repairman and master typesetter, project designer, estimator, chief cook and bottle washer, floor sweeper and phone jockey, not necessarily in that order. Dave's been printing almost as long as he's been involved with little league baseball. Dave's career choice took place in 8th grade shop class. Soon after he set his first line of type he started collecting type and presses and working out of his Grandmother's garage on the weekends. Weekend Printer was started officially in 1978, even though he did his first revenue job on a Kelsey Hand Press in 1966.

Now Dave runs Dock 2 Letterpress and Weekend Printer out of their new 2,400 sq.ft. location on Publishers Parkway in Webster, NY. Trained as an apprentice at Brewer and Newell Printing Corporation, and pressman at Itek Graphics, he earned a Printing Management Associates Degree from RIT through evening coursework. All the while he continued to grow Weekend Printer through word of mouth and a loyal base of repeat customers.

Dave was at the right age to take advantage when everyone in the industry throwing out most of their letterpress equipment and at one time had two garage storage units an entire 1500 square foot barn full of type and presses. Now its all assembled under one roof.

Tony Zanni on the other hand has no classic training in letterpress printing, in fact he learned letterpress from a bee keeper in a barn, who didn't have any training in letterpress printing either. What he does possess is a particular set of skills that he has gathered while taking courses in graphic design at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Graduating in 2007 from RIT with a Bachelors Degree in Graphic Design, Tony has taken to letterpress printing with a renewed fervor and glee. Glee mostly.

Funny thing about Tony's letterpress history, his collection was purchased it in 2002 from Dave. Now that its moving back into Dave's shop the question is raised will Dave refund Tony his money? Needless to say Tony's history of letterpress printing is much shorter than Dave's but what Tony brings to the table in design layout and typography skills makes up for his lack of letterpress experience. Don't be fooled though his perfectionist ways make for really good lock-ups and that gritty distressed look everyone loves letterpress for. Well mostly everyone.

Youthful Exuberance vs. Cagey Veteran, (How Dock 2 came about.)

It was fall of 2008 when Tony and his friend Mike Kopicki were having a cheeseburger when he mentioned I needed to see the letterpress collection of Robert Bretz. So we went back to the barn and called them up. Linda answered and come to find out she was in the process of finding a new home for her husbands collection. Robert now 83 was a librarian when the Cary Collection was in its infancy, obviously where he got into letterpress. He had stopped using the press due to some health issues so his wife was looking to reclaim the basement but wanted to keep the collection as a whole.

That is when Dave stepped in and offered to appraise the collection for her. During the next few months Tony mike and Dave inventoried the entire collection and came up with a value for the Bretz's. during this process Dave was looking for a new home for his shop Weekend Printer, and found a suitable space on a road named Publishers Parkway of all places a mere 2 blocks from his old shop. The space was inexpensive, and during the course of inventorying the collection well both Dave and tony both fell in love with the collection and the idea that it would be an amazing start to a full blown letterpress shop.

So long story short the negotiation was quick money changed hands riggers and minivans were tested moving the collection from the Bretz's basement in to our new space on Publishers parkway. The rest is really a no brainer, the building we moved in to was the old Lawyers Cooperative Publishing building, a building that at one time had huge web and sheet fed presses and a full digital short run shop in it. Abandoned by Lawyers coop some years ago the large industrial building gathered a lot of dust. Letterpress is a fairly industrial profession in its own right, our lightest floor model press is 950 pounds, Dave in one of his moments of clarity decided a good name was Dock 2 Letterpress seeing as our door is the door for DOCK 2 loading docks. And it works as our new identity!