Woodzilla Press Review: The A4 Lever Press That Made Home Lino Printing a Furniture-Grade Hobby

The Woodzilla A4 is one of the five most clicked products on this site, and it is worth understanding why a $409 press for one technique keeps beating cheaper machines that do more. The answer is that it does the one thing relief printers actually need, applying flat, even pressure to the whole block at once, and it does it in a package that does not look like shop equipment. Woodzilla's own spec lists a fully welded steel frame with a powder coat finish, 30 mm press plates, a weight of about 6.5 kg, and dimensions of roughly 33 by 33 by 20 cm. That is a press you can lift with one hand and leave on a sideboard.

The listing states A4 capacity, 8.25 by 11.75 inches, which also covers US letter. In practice that is a 5 by 7 block with room for a second, an 8 by 10 with margins, or a full letter-size block edge to edge. Blocks larger than that mean the A3 model below. What ships in the box matters here: Woodzilla includes a felt press blanket and self-adhesive anti-skid shoes for the frame, so unlike most roller presses you are printing the day it arrives with no felt purchase in between. Add ink and a brayer (both covered in our brayers and block printing inks guide) and you are done.

The honest limits: lever presses convert your arm into pressure, and pressure is what dense blocks need. Owner feedback patterns on the Woodzilla line are consistent that small and medium blocks print effortlessly and that a full-size hard wood block asks for real weight on the handle. If your work is large-format woodcut in hard woods, look at the A3 for the extra leverage or a roller press with packing. For linocut at any size the A4 handles, that concern never comes up. Our linocut and block printing kits guide covers the supplies side; this review is about the machine.

Choosing between the A4 and A3 is not about quality; they are the same press at two sizes. It is purely a question of your largest block, plus a margin for growth. The A3's 11.75 by 16.5 inch capacity takes an 11 by 14 block with room, or two 5 by 7 blocks side by side for a card edition in half the pulls.

If you are unsure, here is the tie-breaker we use: if you have ever bought lino larger than 8 by 10, buy the A3. If every block you own is letter size or smaller, save the $130 and the shelf space. The A3 appears as the relief pick in our best etching presses guide for the printmaker who wants one big platen for everything carved.

The lever press is a simple enough machine that the value version delivers most of the result, and this is the one our readers pick when the Woodzilla's price stalls them. The listing states A4 capacity at 11.8 by 8.7 inches, which matches the Woodzilla's bed almost exactly, and the same brand sells A5, legal, and A3 versions if your block size is unusual.

What you give up is finish, confirmed accessories, and a brand that will still be answering email in five years. What you keep is even platen pressure on A4 blocks, which is the whole point. If the difference between $210 and $409 is the difference between printing this month and not, buy this and print.

Speedball has equipped school printmaking rooms for a hundred years, and this little press is one reason. It does small-format relief with total predictability, shrugs off abuse, and parts exist because the company does. For greeting cards, small editions, and stamp-scale lino it is all the machine required.

The moment your blocks grow past what fits, you have graduated to the Linoartpress or the Woodzilla. Many printmakers keep the Model B anyway for cards.

This is the hedge. If you carved your first lino last month and are already eyeing drypoint videos, a roller press is the only machine that covers both directions, and the Creative Mark is the art-brand version at a home-studio price. Lino prints fine on it with a thin packing sheet and the pressure dialed down.

What you lose is the platen's effortless evenness on blocks, which is the thing Woodzilla owners rave about. What you gain is the whole intaglio world. For the roller press ladder above this, from the Creative Mark to the Italian RGM, see our RGM etching press review.