Ptolemy - Cow Gum? Is this previously chewed or prior to chewing?

Are you udderly out of it?

No! Really! Cow Gum! It's rubber based glue that allows for repositioning of paper and photos. Everyone but everyone in the magazine paste-up industry used it before the days of Pagemaker and Quark Express or whatever. It had virtually 100% of the market (ha!) in the UK and a really distinctive brand (HA!! HA HAAAA!!) - like Marmite or Oxo or Bisto or whatever - and yet it suddenly disappeared off the shelves during the 1980s, and wasn't really replaced with anything at all (Pritt Stick allows for repositioning, but isn't in the same league as Cow Gum).

Even today whenever I visit a town I go into the local art shops to see if they have an unsold tin of Cow Gum left somewhere, but I haven't found one now since about 2001. I got quite excited when I found some on the internet last year, but the shop emailed back to say they too had sold out and had no idea where to get any more from.

>sigh<

Ptolemy - In a former life I worked in a advertising agency where we did quite a bit of mock ups. We used the same thing but it wasn't called 'Cow Gum'. I'll find out where they get it and let you know what it's called here.

Thanks, Tracy!

Determined not to believe I'm going mad JUST yet, I did a quick web search just now and came up with the following reference - I'm sure there's more, but at least it confirms I'm not alone (phew!):

from www.radstats.org.uk

"At the time (1976) he worked at the William Temple Foundation, directed by David Jenkins, who subsequently achieved notoriety as Bishop of Durham and used our material when speaking on health in the House of Lords.
By the autumn, we had drafted a critique and wondered how to get it published quickly, as the consultation on the document was about to close. One of the group, Trisha White, lived in a squat in West Hampstead where her housemates were anarchist print workers, who were also interested in demystifying their techniques. They typeset our manuscript and initiated us into the craft of 'paste up', to create camera ready copy. In the days before the invention of word processors, this now forgotten art involved using a scalpel to cut pieces of typeset text into the right shape and pasting them onto a layout card with Cow Gum. They also put us in touch with a group being set up to distribute publications like ours to left and alternative bookshops."

Ptolemy - We used 3M's Photo Mount Spray 6090 as well as their mounting squares and a few other adhesives. You can buy it in most office supply stores here as well as from 3M direct.

Actually I've 'herd' of cow gum, and I meant had you 'udderly' run out of it, I wasn't questioning your sanity, but I am now.

Herd?! (groaaaaaaan) You're milking the puns now harder even than for the fish jokes...

Tracy, yeah I know... trouble is, 3M Spray Mount even with the most careful precautions leaves a v-e-r-y fine coating of glue over almost every surface in the room, whether it's nailed down or not. The carpet, the walls, even coffee-mugs become tacky after a while. Because of the nature of my work I'm surrounded by 12" and 7" records and CDs, and trust me: spray mount and records do NOT make for comfortable bed-mates....

Ptolemy: I've got some cow gum - you are sane - or is it me? Ulp..... and I think I bought it in Rymans. Lovely stuff! The phone No of the company that makes it is 0753 22274 - oddly called Cow Proofings Ltd, in Slough (you might need to add a 1 as the second number, not sure)



Post Edited (07-24-03 23:25)

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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

When I started work in publishing we used to use hot wax for paste-up. Which has all the advantages of Cow Gum other than being than being made of petrol and rubber and therefore smelling gorgeous.

It does have a few disadvantages though. On one occasioned our paste-up artisit delivered a load of artwork ready to go to the printers, and we left it in the meeting room where we'd been checking it. The meeting room had a large rooflight, and it was a sunny day.

Anyway, when I came to fetch the artwork to wrap it up and send it to the printers, I picked it up and all the illustrations, text and so no fell on the floor, and I was left with a bunch of blank boards.

Oops

ps -- Ptolemy -- I think DTP has been the death of cow gum, which ought to be a good thing, as it should make my life easier. But somehow I seem to be busier, and on more impossible deadlines, than I ever was back then. Strange . . . (I've still got my hot wax roller, if anyone's interested . . . )



Jesus saves; Buddha does incremental backup.

i used to work in a print finishing company, and one day we had a load of sticking to do. The boss, in his infinite wisdom, decided to use Evostick. Yup, everyone's favourite solvent-based contact adhesive. In winter, too, so nobody wanted windows open.

After an hour work had to be stopped and everyone sent home as we couldn't stop giggling...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Ptolemy - We had that problem with the spray adhesive. We had what we called the "sticky" room. Everything in it stuck to everything and everyone who entered. It actually got quite comical.

The best was when someone's dog got in there by mistake. It came out with a Guiness ad stuck to it's nose. The dog had good taste.

Stripping protective plastic off things was good too, you'd slowly build up a static charge, so when the dog came over for fuss she'd get zapped and look really hurt... She'd also bury herself in the discarded wrapping, until you could only see her nose.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

lol

He used to do that all the time. Although Barnaby liked all the cardboard laying about. He was an Irish Wolfhound and by the end of the day he would be lost in cardboard boxes.

Ah, could he do the whole greyhound in an A3 box thing - it's really hard to see how they fit, it really is...

(I should explain, my boss was my father, and the dog was my dog)



Post Edited (07-25-03 05:00)

PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Barnaby wouldn't get into a box but he would stick his head into a plastic garbage pail. He generally had a great deal of difficulty then getting it off. He wasn't the brightest of dogs.

We were a dog friendly work environment. On any given day there would be 4 or 5 dogs roaming around.

Tess used to roll off the roof of the office part when she was sleeping, with a two and a half metre drop... She also had her own tab with the sandwich van that came round (for Hula Hoops) and used to take her place in the queue. She also signed the Xmas cards...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Talented pooch! Barnaby was much more of a thief when it came to food. You couldn't leave him alone in a room with any food. It always disappeared. We always knew where it went though.

Well, the rest of the time she's a complete kleptomaniac - you can't leave food anywhere she can reach or she'll have it. She's been known to steal whole packs of bread rolls before, and hide the ones she can't eat down the back of the sofa. Only the other day we found a Mars Bar hidden down the back of a chair that she'd stolen months ago...

The funniest one wa sthe couple who used to work for us - they were really fat and bought a huge lunch every day. One day the dog got hold of it - without them noticing...

Two baguettes, a packet of crisps and ahuge chocalate cake went. I have never seen an argument like it - they were both blaming each other....



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

A friend of mine ince spent a summer dog-sitting for a friend who was moving to Florida and couldnt take his dog over until the autumn, when it was cooler. Susie was a breed of large German hunting dog, and very stupid.

When she was a puppy, she used to go through a catflap. Then her owner moved, and she grew up to be a largish dog, without a catflap to use. Now Mike, her sitter, had a catflap in his back door. He went out one day and came home to find Susie with her head wedged firmly in the catflap. She hadn't realized quite how much she'd grown.

He took her round to Gary's one day, and Susie found some plums that had fallen from a tree in the back garden. She picked up a plum and ate it, spitting out the stone. She looked at the stone thoughtfully, then ate that too !