Free Pantone Products Make Great Gifts

The snow fell today in our area of western Washington state, which has put us in the spirit of giving. So we've decided to run a giveaway promotion for the next five weeks on Pantone products. Stock up on qualifying Pantone products and receive Free stocking stuffers, including a 2GB Flashdrive and a $5 Starbucks giftcard. If you have been meaning to update your formula guides or chip sets, now would be a great time to do it because the stuff we are giving away will make great gifts (or keep them for yourself, no one will know). The Pantone Capsure is also included in this promotion. For those of you who aren't familiar with Capsure, it is a portable, handheld device that captures color from any surface, material or fabric. It's getting rave reviews on Pantone's site and I, personally, have heard fantastic reports from our customers. During our stocking stuffer promotion you will receive two giveaway items with the purchase of a Capsure. To check out our promotion and view our Pantone listings, click here. If you don't see what you are looking for, just drop us a line, we can order any Pantone item.

Versatile Adjustable Focus 6x Loupe Magnifier

Sometimes you need a magnifier on a stand that leaves both your hands free.

This adjustable focus 6-power loupe magnifier has the added convenience of a weighted base. With this feature you can work on items without the magnifier shifting. Wonderful for doing touch-ups on film and pictures, working on small details of a project, threading needles for craft work, looking at coins or stamps, reading the fine print on items… hundreds of uses!

Once focused, the larger viewing area (1 ¼”) and twin coated photographic quality lenses give a clear view of the items right to the edge and the image isn’t reversed! There’s also a lens cap to protect the lens from dust when you’re not using it (just like a camera).

Great First Aid Kit

Handy First Aid Kit for your work place – designed specifically to meet the needs of a 25-person environment. This can be hung on a wall easily and comes with basic instructions for treating different types of wounds and CPR right on the inside of the lid! The case has an inner rubber seal and can be left in a humid environment.

Contents include items for relief from stings, burn cream, iodine and antiseptic wipes, several sizes of bandages, eye flush, latex gloves, and an instant cold pack as well as the usual adhesive strips, gauze pads, tweezers and scissors found in your general first aid kits.

User-Friendly Microscope

Looking for a handheld microscope? This 15x microscope fits in your pocket and is easy to use – just turn the wheel on the side to focus! Users vary from stamp and coin collectors, to entomology and botanical enthusiasts, to students on field trips or in science classes. Affordable and portable.

New Software Partnership Brings Value and Great Tools

We are pleased to announce that we are now an affiliate of Iconico.com. Please view our software page for details on great web-based graphic design software. From the Iconico.com website:
"Iconico, Inc. provides high quality software for design and development to a wide range of professional computer users. Our software ranges from small tools to full applications, and we design our software to be intuitively simple to use. "

30x Illuminated Microscope

This 30x Illuminated Microscope ($24.95) is one of our customer's favorite products. People who buy this product have been from wide ranging disciplines including printing, graphic arts, stamp collection, machining, geology, textiles, and hobbies. It is a great inspection tool for anyone who needs to do close up work while not being tied down to a desktop microscope. Its portability, rugged construction, built-in light source, and variable focus allows it be used for an endless array of applications.

If you own or are about to buy one (or several) of these let us know what you are using it for! Use this blog's comment feature to leave us a note.

Help with Color is Here!

Did you know, we have several great products to help you with your color work?

1. Process Color Wheel:
   A new tool for all those involved in printing, graphic arts design and desktop publishing. This guide consists of four clear plastic wheels--each printed in the basic process colors--yellow, magenta, cyan and black -in 10% increments. The wheels are turned in sequence by rotating the coded tab until the desired color is revealed.
   
   
2. PANTONE® formula guide coated, uncoated:
   The latest edition has been redesigned in a larger format which provides more color area with which to work, improved readability of important color data and better accessibility to all colors on the pages. The formula guide is an essential tool for graphic designers, pre-press professionals and printers. Its simple design provides a convenient and portable reference that can accompany you at client presentations or on press. This two-guide set contains 1,114 PANTONE Colors on coated and uncoated stocks.
   
   
3. PANTONE® formula guide solid matte:
   The latest edition has been redesigned in a larger format which provides more color area with which to work, improved readability of important color data and better accessibility to all colors on the pages. If you specify PANTONE® Colors for reproduction on matte paper, this guide provides an accurate representation of how they will appear on the final output. Ink formulations for 1,114 solid PANTONE Colors are included in parts and percentages.
   

Proportion Wheel - No Batteries Required!

Our society is definitely focused on gadgets with glitz; sleeker and more digital the better. In some cases more technology can be better. But, we prefer tools you can rely on like our completely non-digital, non-electronic, non-battery operated Proportion Scale. It will never fail you. And, you can always use it as long as you have enough light to see by.

From our Website:
This 6" diameter vinyl proportion scale is designed to quickly ascertain new reproduction sizes for original art, copy, or photographs. It gives number of times of enlargement or percentage of reduction and shows the new size of any element or area of an original when the whole original is reproduced to a new size. Measurements under 1" are marked in red for slides and other small scale work.

Your cost: $6.49

Order Yours Today!

PayPal and Precision Graphic Instruments!

We are pleased to announce that we have integrated PayPal Express Checkout with our store. This means that when you begin the check out process, you will have the option of using the express PayPal option or our Standard secure Yahoo checkout process.

More payment choices! Quicker checkout process for PayPal users! Everybody wins!

Paper Basis Weight

What is paper basis weight? It can be a complex topic. We are working on some guides to place on in the reference section of our site. Until then, here is an excerpt from the International Paper "Pocket Pal -19th Edition" that may help you:

Basis weight identifies printing papers, with few exceptions. In the United States, it is the weight in pounds of a ream (500 sheets) in the basic size for that grade. In the metric system, it is the weight of one square meter of paper and is expressed in grams per square meter or g/m2. Basis 70 means that 500 sheets 25 x 38 inches of book paper weigh 70 pounds. This is equivalent to 104 g/m2 in the metric system.

In the U.S. system, the basic size is not the same for all grades: It is 25 x 38 for book papers (coated, text, offset, opaque, etc.); 17 x 22 for writing papers (bond, ledger); 20 x 26 for cover papers (coated and uncoated); 25.5 x 30.5 for index bristol, 22.5 x 28.5 or 22.5 x 35 for mill bristol and postcard; 24 x 36 for tag and newsprint.

Paper is commonly identified by ream weight: 20-pound bond, 70-pound coated, etc. However, paper is usually listed in size-and-weight tables and price lists on a thousand sheet basis: 25 x 38 -- 140M for a 70-pound book paper, the "M" meaning 1,000 sheets 25 x 38 weighs 140 pounds. Each grade is made in many standard sizes other than the basic size, and in many weights. Ffor example, book papers are made in weights from 50-pound to 100-pound in 10-pound increments.

From our site. We some tools that can help you measure basis paper weight.

Check out our Pocket Paper Scale


and our Premium Basis Weight Paper Scale.

20x Ihara Dot Inspector / Color Viewer

This multi-color Viewing System from Ihara is a newly released competitor to the BetaColor Viewer. It is the ideal tool to precisely view and separate your process colors on printed film, plates, color proofs and press sheets. Contrasting light allows you to see the separate colors. For example, at the press of a button the blue LED is engaged, enhancing the yellow dots in the viewing area. This method of shining contrasting light to separate the colors replaces the old method of using filters.

A white LED light is also available for use as a standard illuminated magnifier (image is inverted). The LED offers bright, consistent color. No attached charger is necessary, as this lightweight instrument (3.3 oz) accepts 2 AAA batteries on board. Includes a carrying case and handy strap. Priced significantly lower than the BetaColor Viewer, too!

Lens Diameter: 9/16"
Viewing Area: 5/16"
Overall Size: 4 1/3” x 2 3/8” x 1”

Buy today!

12" Stainless Steel Corkback Ruler

We love rulers (well, we love anything you can use to measure); cork backed rulers are my favorite kind. The cork backing help keeps the ruler in place while using it draw lines or measure distances. You probably have experienced ruler slippage syndrome (rss) using an unbacked ruler. This is when you are drawing that super important line, and you put a little too much horizontal pressure on the ruler and it slips cause your line to splay across your paper at odd angles and beyond your original intent.

Because of the cork back, our 12" Stainless Steel model will stay put while drawing a line with less pressure on top of it then a typical non-backed ruler; and it will drastically reduce RSS! Stainless steel also means no rust. Buy one today!

From the Product Description Page:

This indispensable 12" ruler is made in the USA from the highest quality, spring-tempered stainless steel obtainable.

• Inches in 16ths along the top
• Metric in the opposite direction along the bottom
• Cork-backed to protect your work surface and prevent sliding
  

Overall Size: 12" x 1 1/4" x .072" thick

Best Lens Cleaning Cloth Ever!

A big part of our business has to do with lenses in magnifiers. So we clean a lot of them, either in our own use, or during our pre-shipping quality assurance process. We've also gone through a lot of lens cleaning cloths over the years trying to find one that we like. It had to hold up over time, be large enough to clean big items, and prevent that annoying slipping that some times happens- (that's when you are cleaning a lens and your thumb or finger slips off the fabric and you lay a big fingerprint right on the glass. Annoying.).

We finally found our favorite. It the lens cleaning cloth we sell on our website for $4.95. It is soft on one side, with little nubby beads on the other to give you a grip.

From our site's product description:

Microfiber lens cleaning cloth provides excellent cleaning of delicate surfaces. Remove oily films leaving the lens clean, polished, and lint free. Safe for glass or acrylic lenses, coated or uncoated. Silicone dots on the back of the cloth provide a slip-free grip surface for your fingers.

Click here to go check it out.

Pocket Pal: Indispensable Reference!

The "Pocket Pal" is a one-stop shop of indispensable information. Have a question about graphic arts--you've got to check out this " authoritative introduction to the graphic arts for artists, designers, publishers, advertisers, students and buyers of printing."

From the publishers:

The editor of the 19th Edition is Frank Romano, with the RIT School of Print Media. “This edition attempts to put conventional and digital printing into proper perspective and show what impact the new systems are having on the present and future uses and markets of printing. It covers the history of printing, an introduction to the printing processes, prepress, postpress and paper. It also has a glossary of graphic arts terms, making it ideal for a wide range of customers,” said Romano.

Specific areas featured include:

* Digital imaging
* Computer-to-plate, computer-to-plate on press and computer-to-press systems
* Digital workflows
* New processless plates and UV and violet lasers that allow use of conventional plates
* Information on toners and digital inks
* Color management
* Binding
* Graphic terms
* International Paper Printing Papers overview

Learn to use an Outside Micrometer

Have you ever needed to measure the thickness of materials like paper, wires, dowel rods, stamps, cloth? You should consider using an Outside Micrometer! Don't be intimidated by the lack of a digital readout. They are easy to learn to use and:

• An outside micrometer often has a larger range than other types of micrometers
  
• An outside micromter is more affordable than the thickness gauge style micrometers which have a dial or digital face.
  
• An outside micrometer may work in applications in which the measurement is taken in an awkward position or that requires a reach, whereas the thickness gauges require a much more steady hand with which to take the measurement.
• A user with a larger hand span can learn to maneuver the outside micrometer with one hand.
• And if you need to have an extra hand, you can purchase an outside micrometer stand.
  

So, if you are thinking about buying an outside micrometer, or you already own one and you are having trouble learning how to use it, read our "How to use a micrometer" page. It will tell you everything you need to know to take outside measurements using an outside micrometer with either a .001" or .0001" resolution.

--Happy Measuring!

What is a Linen Tester?

Some customers who come to our site looking for a high-powered folding magnifier will come across the term "Linen Tester" and wonder what it means. Well, we're here to help! Linen Testers, in terms of magnifiers (not people) are, in general, small folding magnifiers with measuring gradients along the bottom surface that is visible while looking through the lens. The product below (a 6x Metal Linen Tester) is a good example. In the picture below you can see the top and bottom hinges that allow the magnifier to fold very flat for easy portability. You can also see the white measurement marks on the base. Linen Testers (or thread counters) were originally developed for the textile industry to help people examine the type and quality of textile weaves. They were made hinged and foldable for portability and had the measurement marks for easy comparison. Our linen testers (and other folding magnifiers) are being used in a wide range of applications including print shops, circuit board manufacturing, and stamp collecting. (I know a few of our employees like to use them to help remove splinters because a linen tester base help keep the skin pressed down while the open comparator area allows easy access by a tweezers.)

Decimal Points Refresher

Often, measuring with a caliper or micrometer means you are going to be talking about very small numbers. For example, the thickness of a piece of paper, film, or even a mouse ear! Sometimes, it is easy to get tangled up and confused by what to call all those digits behind the decimal point. To help get our customers untangled we created a web page that illustrates decimal point places as a handy reference. Let us know what you think by submitting a comment.

The first post!

Don't let the name fool you-our products can be used for graphics work or any application where fine inspection is required. Using this blog we'll be able to let our current and potential customers know about our great line of products including micrometers & calipers, high-powered magnifiers, pre-press equipment, plant & workplace safety equipment, and microscopes.

We'll let you know when we have sales, and discuss the uses of our equipment. We hope you will find this information useful.