Friend Ivan Snyder giving the Linotype a go

Friend Ivan Snyder giving the Linotype a go a video by Stumptown Printers on Flickr.
Here's our pal Ivan Snyder sitting at the Stumptown Printers Linotype. This guy has volunteered more time, sweat, muscle, know-how, equipment, etc. to the current Portland printing community than any one I know. He has helped usher in a new generation of Portland letterpress printers who appreciate the real deal and love working with metal type. Thanks Ivan!

Notes to self: inventory mats before running

Tonight I tried running new-to-me mats. I have a better idea of how many mats fit in a half magazine, because I discovered that I had way too many. I bet there is a lower case "e" count that would allow one to quickly determine if there are too many mats to fit. So, self, check it out. Also, please inventory mats before taking the time to load them into a magazine. After what appeared to be a full font, I discovered I only have one (.). This is a problem. Anyway. Always learning. But never seem to learn that you can never have enough patience for this machine.

Trust the spacebands....

Below is a scan of a proof of some lines cast this past weekend for a friend. 8pt Linotype Paragon set on 23 pica line, regular justification. I let the space bands do their work, and wanted to learn their tolerances and get used to how a line would space out according to how many spaces bands were used vs. word size, etc. I figured this face could handle some "gappy" word spaces, but I was surprised at how this composition appears fairly consistent. Even though there are some lines with ambitious word spacing, none of them stand out as being too obnoxious with noticeable "holes" or "rivers" in the composition.

What I learned: generally speaking, space bands have a "spread" of 3 pts, so if you have at least 5 space bands in a line, they will easily take up a pica worth of space.  I'll add a separate post which will describe the markings and different thickness of Linotype spacebands.

Another thing I was reminded of after setting these lines are the rules for indentation. For commercial work, the rule of thumb is to indent paragraphs by an em for lines set up to 20 picas. 1.5 ems for lines up to 25 picas, and 2 ems for lines above 25 picas. Of course depending on type size, leading, etc. there are exceptions. But after looking at the paragraphs I set below, I think my 2 em indentations are a bit too aggressive.  I referenced the book "Linotype Keyboard Operation" for the refresher.

Oh, after clicking on this photo to take a closer look, I noticed something else. See the lower case "i" with a problem? I'll have to run the mats out and have a look at them. 

Portland, Oregon Premier of Linotype: The Film 

Speaking of the American Typecasting Fellowship Conference, here's a conference event that is open to the public. Should be a fun time, and a good way to keep cool tomorrow.

Portland, Oregon Premier of:
Linotype: The Film 

When: Thursday, August 16th
Time: 6pm doors, Meet & Greet | 7:00pm Screening followed by Q&A
Where: McMenamins Kennedy School Theater | 5736 N.E. 33rd Ave. 
Admission cost: $10 (Free to conference attendees)
(advance tickets available at Stumptown Printers or online)

Film Screening, Meet & Greet with Linotype operators and master craft printers from around the country and here at home. Also Q&A with “Linotype: The Film” filmmaker

Plus! After the film, Kyle Durrie will have her "Moveable Type Truck" on site, and will invite folks aboard to print a commemorative Linotype keepsake.

Presented by the C. C. Stern Type Foundry in conjunction with the American Typecasting Fellowship Conference, and is funded in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council.


Linotype: The Film is a feature-length documentary centered around the Linotype type composing machine. Called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” by Thomas Edison, it revolutionized printing and society. The film tells the charming and emotional story of the people connected to the Linotype and how it impacted the world.

C.C. Stern Type Foundry Located in Portland, Oregon, The C.C. Stern Type Foundry is a working museum dedicated to preserving the art and industry of the cast letterform, letterpress type. With one of the largest collections of Monotype casting matrices in the United States, the C.C. Stern Type Foundry honors the memory of C. Christopher Stern, who built and operated the foundry at Stern & Faye, Printers of Sedro-Woolley, Washington.

2012 American Typecasting Fellowship Conference Since 1978, The American Typecasting Fellowship Conference is a biennial meeting of enthusiasts, amateur and professional, interested in all aspects of the making of metal type used for letterpress printing. This group is central to what is becoming a renaissance of typefounding in America.

Poster Composition cast on the Stumptown Printers' Linotype Model 31

Poster Composition cast on the Stumptown Printers' Linotype Model 31

 

 

 

Mold 10-18 F7660

Couple stupid things I did while casting this evening:

1. Fired up the machine after a long day of regular job printing. (Not the best idea to attempt to cast while not quite on the ball.)

2. Attempted to cast the second position of a 14 pt (regular 2 letter) matrices using a 10-18 F7660 mold.

3. Tried it again.

4. Wondered why the machine was squirting.

Lesson (note to self): Don't do that. First position is no problem but second will not work. Check positioning of mat on mold before attempting to cast. And, do a little research on this particular mold: Mold 10-18 F7660.

Additional thoughts on delivery and elevator transfer cam damage.

Thinking more on Keelan’s damaged delivery and elevator transfer cam. Bill Spurling pointed out this repair that had been made on his Model 14


I know brazing cast iron can be tricky business, and it seems to be difficult to find folks who are willing to do it these days, but it can be done and in this case it is a clean effective repair. This solution seems to be a heck of a lot simpler than pulling the main cams and shaft apart. Still, the mystery is: how did this thing break? As far as I can see, this part of the cam is used to assist in retracting the ejector lever after the slug is ejected, but it seems that the mold cam lever does most of this work. I can't really imagine what would have caused this much force to crack the cam.

Linotype Machine Cycle View from Back

(if above video does not load, try this link)

This is a post for Keelan Lightfoot who recently acquired a Linotype Model 31 with a damaged delivery and elevator transfer cam. His machine is not under power at this point, so he was hoping to see if he could determine if the damage to his machine is detrimental to its operation. Keelan, the 3rd perspective shows a line of white-out that I applied to the cam in order to determine where the follower hits it at this point. I thought it was a good idea, but it didn't really reveal much. The white-out wasn't quite dry when the cam rotated and it appeared to be un-touched after the cycle. Maybe this is good news, but I'm suspicious. I didn't really get a chance to dig around back there. But there you have it. Anyway, this perspective is not one that I see very often. It's quite a graceful motion, isn't it?

The Linotype Machine that makes the Fiddleink

This is my machine, a Linotype Model 31. The photo below is taken at its original location: the former Pioneer Printing Company in Vancouver, Washington. It is now located at my workplace, Stumptown Printers.

 

Pioneer Printing was the original and only owner until we purchased it, and I do believe that the machine was moved only once over the 64 years that they owned it.

The machine is a single distributor 1946 Linotype 31 “4 pocket” mold with hydraquadder. Serial Number 57557. A friend of ours remembers staring into this plate glass window as a kid, transfixed by the sound of the presses, the scent of ink and the movement of this gentle giant with its slow rolling oversized cams. These memories are what inspired him to pursue a career in printing. He's retired now, and I haven't actually told him that the machine is now on our floor. I wonder if he would be excited to see it again, or if he would want to run for the hills at the sight of it. It’s hard to say.


The folks at Pioneer Printing were able to give me a copy of the original “bill of sale with mortgage” issued by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. The purchase price of this particular machine in 1946 was $6843.00. That’s some serious coin for that time. It's equal to about $75,000 by today’s dollar value. We saved it from the scrap yard for 3 Ben Franklins, a promise to take good care of it and for the cost of rigging. However, considering that the cost of brass is higher these days than it has been for years, and that the metal value alone is often higher than what print nerds like myself can afford to shell out, I feel like the previous owners were generous for allowing us to “save” the machine instead of simply scrapping the machine.

Promotional piece from Pioneer Printing, 11 years before this Linotype was built!

Promotional piece from Pioneer Printing, 11 years before this Linotype was built!

Celebrating the 125th Anniversary

July 3rd, 2011 marked the 125th anniversary of the invention of the Linotype machine. On this day in 1886 the machine was successfully tested after being installed in a production environment at the New York Tribune.

 

To celebrate, some fellow Stumptown Printers and fellow volunteers of the C.C. Stern Type Foundry fired up the 31 with the mission to cast some slugs and have a bit of fun.

Connie from C.C. Stern Type Foundry and Buzzworm Studios casting a “tweet”

Connie from C.C. Stern Type Foundry and Buzzworm Studios casting a “tweet”

After exchanging tweets with Doug Wilson (director of Linotype the film) earlier that proceeding week, we cobbled together an idea to cast "tweets", and do it in a semi "real time" manner. The idea was that people would tweet Linotype-relevant quotes, ideas, anniversary greetings etc., and use the hash tag #lino125 as a thread to keep the tweets together. We'd cast the tweet in metal, pull a proof of it, photograph the printed proof with corresponding metal slugs and re-tweet with a link to the photo(s). We received a bunch of tweets, too many for us to cast in the small window of time allotted for the project. Several tweets arrived well after the machine was cool and we had started on the beer drinking part of the celebration. Some good anniversary greetings didn't make it to metal this time. There was a lot of enthusiasm for this project, so we'll probably do something like this again. If your tweet didn't make it in this last time, there will be another opportunity.
 

The typeface we used was 8 pt Linotype Paragon (8^464) designed by C.H. Griffith in 1935. This periodical roman was the fourth to be introduced into Linotype's "Legibility Group" and designed to appear clean and crisp in high-speed newspaper production environment that often requires heavy ink coverage on absorbent low quality newsprint. I'm a sucker for this era of linotype periodical faces, to me they represent the poetry of industry, a perfect marriage between the tools and the craft. We were lucky to have the following universal sorts at 8pt that would be required to cast tweets: "@", "#" & "/" , though one of our "#" went missing during the run, it must have found its way into another magazine channel.

tweet from @jessheugel. Way to go, Jess. We agree with this. It would be nice to know that folks could lay their eyeballs on the first Linotype Machine, even if it is only a recent photograph of it. 

tweet from @jessheugel. Way to go, Jess. We agree with this. It would be nice to know that folks could lay their eyeballs on the first Linotype Machine, even if it is only a recent photograph of it. 

To see additional photos of the “tweets to metal” project, check out the Stumptown Printers Flickr photo stream. The crew of Linotype the film have offered to send the slugs of 5 tweets to their tweeter. So if you participated, perhaps you'll receive your tweet in metal. Speaking of Linotype the film, we are all excited about their project. The crew have been doing an excellent job capturing footage of today's Linotype operators, experts and enthusiasts and as a result of their research and filming have brought us together to help keep these machines running and this technology alive. So if you aren't familiar with the project, please check it out.

Prost! After the tweet-casting session, we made a toast to Ottmar,  and enjoyed some German lagers. Pictured on the right is Jeff from the C.C. Stern Type Foundry and Buzzworm Studios

Prost! After the tweet-casting session, we made a toast to Ottmar,  and enjoyed some German lagers. Pictured on the right is Jeff from the C.C. Stern Type Foundry and Buzzworm Studios