Archive

JST Printing – keeping the business all in the family

February 22, 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

It used to be called Bailie Printing after its owner, Calvin Bailie. There was a name change in 1999, to the name to JST Printing, the first initials of his three grandsons.

Calvin Bailie told us, “I opened the business in 1960 and it was Bailie Printing service. I was on Broadway until I bought the building on Wellington in ‘73.”

The start of this enterprise was, “I was a printer in Toronto, living up here, for 13 years.I decided to go into business for myself. I started working for them in 1947,  and figured then, 13 years is enough to know how’s it done.”

At the time Billie’s was the only printer except, “ there was the Orangeville Banner . They had a job printing department.” 

Mr. Bailie was born in Maple, Ontario and “my family moved up after the war to the Laurel area.”

What makes his business good: “It’s good service; guaranteed work.”

The current owner and front manager is Lorne Bland.

Said Mr. Bailie, “He  married my daughter and,” humorously, “he did ask my permission. He knew nothing about printing at that time. He was working for Gillespie Hardware.

“I had three sons. Most of them worked in the business.  They were in the printing;   I preferred to work out the back, not in the front. At the time, we had another manager but he was moving on and we thought we had a better job for Lorne here, rather than working somewhere else. This is really a family business.”

As it turned out, timing is all and “my former employees moved to their own business, which was  perfect timing. My sons were on to do others things too. My one son is a professional golfer. He’s the pro with Club Link – they have about 60 courses. But he’s the pro at  Bond Head Golf Course. He just took over there. He runs the place all winter long but the company sends him all over the place on business as well.

“When Lorne took over, he replaced some things but the not the letter press and we’re the only ones that do that now.  I’m probably the only one that does that knows how to [maintain] the machinery. Others  have off set – lithographic  uses water and ink rather than just ink.”

The letter press is vintage: “The machine is a 1951 model. I repair it. I do all the machines repair. There are places elsewhere. It would hard to train  someone else. Letter press is very complicated but it’s better  because it does dye cutting, perforating, that kind of stuff.”

He commented with real wisdom, “It’s a dying part of the trade  but it’s still needed. Copiers are getting better. My other son worked on the trade on the off set part, on weekends.”

 He endeavoured to explain;: “Letter press is very complicated. You’re with hot type. We used to have lino type until 6 years ago. Anybody could come here and learn off set but the letter press takes two to three years to learn. The advantage of die cutting is the die cuts with a blade of knife. It’s best for the door hangers in hotels with the hole in them in the slip.  That’s what I  do. It’s the only way. It can’t be done otherwise.” 

As to business cards, “where I use to imprint business cards, that’s not done anymore. So, we print them in more modern ways. We can do every kind of printing.”

How he feels about that: “It’s progress, I guess. Small printers, generations on, are going out of business because these copiers are getting so good. A small job with a printer is one price but a thousand copies could cost the same.”

From his point of view: “I don’t think there ‘s any way around that. Most companies have their own copiers; [In theory], people want to use less papers.”

He said that and yet, “Other materials can make paper but we only use what we call fine paper. There’s always going to be a need, until somebody comes up with another way of doing what a letter press does. A company in Brampton, there’s a young man who has eight machines like mine.”

Lorne Bland acquired the business 20 years ago, in 1999, without changing things much, except the company name and to introduce computers into the office.

Said Mr. Bailie, “I can’t believe what computers can do. Basically, we do what we did back then but we use copiers too when needed.”

“We used to have drawers and drawers of line type but, when we moved, we just threw them out – nobody wants that sort of thing now.” 

In 2013, the business moved to its current location at 35 Robb Boulevard at the corner with C Line, Unit 4, in Orangeville. JSTPrinting, combining old fashion service and a huge range of products and finishes, with modern technology where applicable, looks behind and ahead to offer so many options.

They can be reached at 519- 941-1218. their website is  www.jstprintng.ca.

Readers Comments (0)