A slug, and a slug of 14pt Linotype Baskerville
Typos: ^occurred ^typed
Keyboarding 14pt can be fun. The mats are heavy, drop fast and lines are composed quickly. On the other hand, sometimes 14pt mats pile up at the distributor, and cause headaches, but not with this particular magazine.
Book release postcard, Monotype Cast Bodoni 175, Linotype cast borders
The completed chapbook. After several attempts at casting the type. We’re happy with the results.
Our opening slide for the presentation
Thank you to the team at Arion Press for hosting Rebecca and myself this past weekend and inviting us to share stories about the print communities we’ve been fortunate to be part of, as well as the paths that led us to typecasting. It was an honor—and, frankly, a little nerve-wracking—to speak at such a venerable press, surrounded by peers, friends, and many of our heroes (and those who fit all three categories). We are not practiced public speakers; we are more comfortable hiding behind a printing press than standing behind a podium. But preparing for the presentation gave us a chance to contextualize our seemingly disparate experiences within the printing trade and within printing culture. Ink on paper and the printed word is powerful stuff. It's been said that ink gets in your blood. That may be true, but I would add that ink is sticky stuff—and because of that, it is especially good at building and holding communities together.
Sept 22 17:16 (2026)
typed on a 1974 Adler J5. This typer is a filthy, ugly Little beast, but it has wonderflow - wonderful flow - it's a fun one.
Slide from presentation: Brian’s Dayton, Ohio Zinester days
Slide from presentation: Rebecca’s zinester days
Slide from presentation: The IPRC (Independent Publishing Resource Center)
Slide from presentation: Early Stumptown Printers
Slide from presentation: Stumptown Printers’ 3rd location. My bro running the small but mighty E47, and the namesake for the “Arigato Pak!” But that’s another story.
Slide from presentation: Craft Printing House, our new little job shop located in the hills above Clatskanie, Oregon at the same property as the C.C. Stern Type Foundry
Slide from presentation: Images from the C.C. Stern Type Foundry
Slide from presentation: images from the American Type Casting Fellowship conference held at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry.
Arigato Pak! Broadside, printed from hot-metal Linotype Garamond
Garamond Linotype Mats
An early logo for the Arigato Pak!
Linotype Garamond Type Specimen from “Big Red”
I'm considering making a sign to place next to this underwood so folks know that they are encouraged to touch this thing and type a line or two or three or four or more. We've got an event scheduled tomorrow: it's a reading and release celebration for our latest poetry broadside. The Poet is Tod Marshall. The printer is Mare Blocker. Mare did some stunning ink-slinging that matches Tod's powerful word-smithin'. Type of course was cast here on site. We're expecting around 30 to 50 folks for the release event, so there will be plenty of potential typers and logbook signers. Wish me and this Underwood luck. Oh, and as for that typo - we finished reprinting that today. It will go out early next week and none will be the wiser. Except for everyone who we cajole to "sign in" by typing on this machine. -fiddleink
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Completed Hellboxes next to Monotype Thompson Caster.
Well, dang it. Typo. Not here on the No. 5, but a typo just discovered on one of the postcards that was about to go out. The typo? The spelling of the poet's name. Yeah, not one that we could let slide. So, recast the type. Reprint 3 runs. One letter transposed. It will result in about 3 additional hours of work, and spoiled materials. It happens, In fact, I think printers enjoy these bumbles. They make good stories once enough time has passed. Besides, the cards *didn't* go out. Connie caught the error before we started to put postage on the cards. so no one needs to know our secret, eh? We're professionals around here.
The Sugarcubes "Hey" from Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week is on the speaker as I type. I haven't heard this in ages. Sounds good. What an interesting band. For an interesting time. -fiddleink
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Scene of the Typo crime
A quick and dirty rally poster printed from wood type at Craft Printing House, Clatskanie, Oregon
Avoid future regrets! Let your voice be heard! Our sacred Post Office is under attack again, say it (and write it) loud before July 2nd!
To my fellow type crafters and grounded communicators of earthly human methods (AKA people who interact with their community by way of physical mail), once again a handful of scoundrels are trying their best to hobble our postal service, with the ultimate goal to privatize and sell off the USPS to corporate interests.
The effort to destroy the Post Office is not new, this is not a blue team versus red team issue, this is a greedy corporate crony take-over issue. It's a "destroy our sacred public service so that our corporate overlords will save us" scheme.
This time the strategy is to hysterically promote falsehoods around the security of mail-in election ballots to weaken the public's trust in our Post Office.
I won't go down that election-falsehood rathole for this missive. The point is, the Executive Order 14399 (presented in March this year) would dump a lot of confusion and complication onto the laps of our postal workers. It would blur the role of post-office professional with elections administrator and place an additional burden of monitoring election protocols onto postal workers.
The good news is that last week a federal judge blocked key parts of the executive order, ruling that it was unconstitutional. Hey! Yea for Democracy! Right? Well, the BAD NEWS is that loop holes remain, and apparently some stooges within the Post Office are attempting to pass new rules echoed in the original executive order.
Take Action! Tell 'em what you think! The USPS needs our support to continue to serve our communities, they don't need additional burdens to complicate an already difficult job. The comment period is still open, public comments must be received on or before July 2, 2026.
What else can you do? Why, here’s an idea: send more physical mail! If you need someone to send a note to, here's an address:
Fiddleink
PO Box 1499
Clatskanie, OR 97016
I'll send you a note in return. Likely I'll include something that was printed from freshly cast Linotype composition.
What else? Stay informed. Check out resource links below.
APWU (American Postal Workers Union)
U.S. Mail Not for Sale
A Grand Alliance to Save our Public Postal Service
U.S. Mail Not for Sale factsheet (PDF)
Thursday. June 25th 21:40 Brian and Jason from MOSMA (museum of stop motion animation) drove the 1½ hours from Portland to tour the Foundry. (BTW, above was the 1st time that I used the "½" key. This is very exciting) anyway, I squandered the opportunity to have the fellas make an entry into this logbook. Man. A missed opportunity. Jason is a typewriter guy, too. He even glanced over at this workhorse Underwood No5, but he didn't touch it. I guess this makes him a very good visitor to a Type Foundry. It's a good idea not to go touching foundry equipment, though I'm pretty sure that this Underwood won't burn you with molten metal, or remove a finger while it is running. At least those things haven't happened yet. No offense to the Underwood, but it is sitting right next to two Monotype keyboards, kinda stiff competition to capture the attention of visiting eyeballs. It was nice to spend some time with the lads, they are both up to some good things. While here they cast some type on the Ludlow Typograph. Other happenings: we started casting type for the July poetry postcard, and processed new subscriptions for that series. (only 21 subscriptions remaining, which means that we'll break even and may even raise a couple bucks for the non-profit) If anyone reading this would like to see some of the machines here in action, I've posted a couple videos of the postcard type casting and print production at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry youtube page. Forgive the clumsy youtube work, it's not really our thing to do the social medias, but I do think it's a good opportunity to share these amazing machines with folks who can't swing by to see them in person. -fiddleink
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Monotype Keyboard
Back of the No. 5 typewriter, which serves as the C.C. Stern Type Foundry “Log Book”
Parts organization continues. The big wooden cabinets that did a better job hiding parts rather than keeping them organized and readily accessible have been removed, and for the most part disassembled and de-nailed. Tomorrow the boards will get ripped down to be used to construct more "hell boxes." We're aiming to make 45 boxes total. A perhaps aspirational number. 45 boxes means a lot of type cast, and a lot of type cast means happy functioning machines. Currently the Monotype composition machine department is not happy at all. Perhaps making "hell boxes" is a distraction from the perplexing mechanical issues. Sure, that very well may be the case. but we'll get back on it, it's been good to change pace... Also along with parts and storage organization, we moved machines! At roughly 1500 lbs, these machines don't really like to be moved. Slow and steady, and... slow. Using levers, pipes and blocking, and going slow. We moved the old Lanston parts machine off the over-sized pallet and out of the way. we moved the 16 by 17 English comp caster out of storage and onto the floor, and moved the 15 by 15 English comp caster back into storage. No cast iron was cracked, or fingers crushed. It was a good day of machine moving. -fiddleink
For additional typewriter content: Typosphere and One Typed Page and Typewriter Revolution
6-12-26 (Friday) Smith-Corona Super-Speed
for OTP
Let's suppose that you want to be the record-setting word typer of all time.
if the average typing speed is:
40 words per minute
then it's possible to crank out:
2,400 words per hour
If you can keep up that typing pace (it would not be possible to take breaks - perhaps you could urinate in a sports-drink bottle while you are typing at your desk) then it is conceivable that you can type:
19,200 words per 8 hour work day
After a 40 hour week of dedicated typing, you could reach a staggering:
96,000 words in a week
After one year of urinating in sports-drink bottles and skipping vacation, you could achieve:
4,992,000 typed words
Amazing! As a bonus for a job well done, let's round your word count to:
5 million typed words a year
5 MILLION WORDS A YEAR! (you might also have accumulated at least 260 bottles of "trucker's lemonade," but let's not focus on that. Now you are a FIVE MILLION WORD champion. Now what? Now you want MORE! Of course you do! You figure that you could make a career of this. Let's imagine that you put in 40 years of this typing prowess, GO CHAMP, YOU CAN DO IT!
Let's imagine that you did it. It has been a wonderful word typing career. In 40 years you have typed:
200,000,000 words (40 years dedicated to typing words)
Incredible! Inhuman! Two-Hundred-Million words!
But wait, some guy just declared that he should be rewarded for having accomplished typing 1,000,000,000,000 words. ONE TRILLION WORDS!
WHAT?!? You dedicated your life to this! You gave everything, you sacrificed vacations, your body is a wreck, you can no longer move your fingers after all of that typing. You did the best that you could do. Two-Hundred-Million words is the most that one person can type. It would take 5,000 dedicated word typers each typing 200,000,000 words to reach One-Trillion typed words. It would take more than a village, it would take a small town, a decent sized ARMY to accomplish that. How could that shockingly unimaginable mind-boggling number of typed words be credited to just one person? -fiddleink
For additional typewriter content: Typosphere and One Typed Page and Typewriter Revolution
This little guy has made it to far corners of the globe, he's traveled in envelopes to explore analog spaces in Europe, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and all over these United States. His communications back to the print shop here in the hills above Clatskanie inform us that his travels have been successful, and that he has been finding some good spaces. Thanks to everyone who is currently hosting him. This particular mission is almost complete (since I'm nearly out of the edition). However, Spaceband Spaceman has been a good explorer and ambassador for the unexpected down time one may encounter in their busy lives, so there will be future missions by newer Spaceband Space-beings. Look for them in off-line spaces.
Type Casting Machinery used: Linotype Model 31 (1946, originally purchased by Pioneer Printing in Vancouver, Washington. Stumptown Printers was the second owner. Now the machine resides at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry) Types cast: Helvetica 6pt^696, 12^153 vertical gothic.
The text written on Spaceband Spaceman's Flag:
Made from precision machined steel and found at home between brass Linotype matrices, we Spacebands hold meaning together by providing space between it. We make incremental space determined by the length of words in a line. Without my kind, the Linotype machine would have been a flawed design. And without space between things, life would be a constant jumble. Now we Spacebands travel beyond our world of brass, type metal, and cast iron in search of new spaces where we may find work. My space vehicle of choice is the space between the folds of an envelope. I've travelled in the space between "far" and "wide," I discovered that the space between books on a bookshelf is divine. I've found a perfect space between "breathe in" and "breathe out," there's plenty of work for me between the place called "to" and the place called "fro." I've even found space between coffee grind and coffee brew. And lovely space between the sound of raindrops falling on a metal roof. There's plenty of space to explore. Can you think of more? If you find some time between your meetings and tasks, look for me there. The Spaceman Spaceband will be doing what I do best: holding together the meaning of the moment through space, and providing a pause before what's next.
If you'd like to catch a Spaceband Spaceman before he disappears into space, you can purchase one through the C.C. Stern Type Foundry marketplace, where a percentage of the sales goes towards programming at the Foundry.
Some Spaceband Spaceman guts
A torso with perhaps a fancy ding-a-ling
Log entry: Saturday, June 6th 2026. It's the Swainson Thrush hour again. And their sounds are as wondrous as they were last night. Today at the Foundry: more hellboxes made! More metal melted. This time we attempted to mix the type soup with more tin, to produce pigs appropriate for Monotype composition casting. We'll see how it goes... Also, the team prepped the next poetry postcard to be mailed this week. Printed, die-cut, addresses updated and ready to go. - Fiddleink
Hellboxes stacking up
Linotype Keyboard at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry
Printed on newsprint, and fed on an auto-platen that didn't like feeding newsprint. These are family friendly ef words that hold some meaning. Set in American Type Founders type procured from Scotty's barn at the Stern and Faye Print Farm. The typeface is named "Flash" which is a word that also begins with the letter "F."
Very inky type. That newsprint is fairly drinky paper.
21:23 The Swainson's Thrush is still chatting at this late hour. They are closing the place down it appears. Outlasting even the Robbins. I love their last call song. It's a beautiful thing. it's an honor to bear witness to this little bird closing symphony. Well, we melted more metal today. Yielded about 25 pigs in total. Not bad. The pigs were pouring nicely. the metal looks smooth, clean, not too shiny. Also today I reassembled the Partlow on the material maker. The bracket for the assembly needed to be welded, which was accomplished last year, but the machine has sat dormant. Good news: we managed to get the thing back together and tested the crucible. Within 45 minutes, we had what we call "Type Soup" (molten type alloy. ready for casting - about 575 degrees) the temperature was consistent. It works! Bad News: during the testing process, we discovered another damaged/broken part. It's a cast iron "standard" used to properly align the pot, nozzle and mold. It's a clean break, so a good braze should fix it, but getting someone out here may be the tricky part. One step forward, one step back. If this craft was easy, it wouldn't be special, eh? -fiddleink
Monotype Material Maker back in action. Kind of.
Type Soup.
Broken Standard. Bummer.
8:46 PM. Clouds rolled in from the West about an hour ago, cooling the air significantly. So much so that I’m now wearing a thick hoody. It's a treat to have a cool, breezy evening after a what seemed like & proper hot summer day. A group (flock?) of Western Tanagers have been hanging out high in the Fir and Cedar trees near the Foundry. Their brilliant yellow and red is startling to witness against the gray-green backdrop of the forest. We fired up the Noland re-melt furnace to recycle type metal. It's a small run, but we probably remelted about 500lbs this afternoon-will do another batch tomorrow. I had a Linotype machine "hotted" up by request of a would be visitor who didn't show, so I cast a couple slugs to add to the slugs that will hopefully become the "Anna" print that I previously mentioned. Otherwise I spent the day building "hell buckets" (in this case, the buckets are wooden boxes, meant to hold spent type waiting to be re-melted) We used scrap plywood originally purchased to protect the machines from roof damage. It’s good to give that plywood another job now that the roof is fixed. - fiddleink
Noland Remelt. Small run of pigs.
Making Hellboxes out of repurposed plywood
The “guts” of Anna. If the print works, a new type “being” will be born.
A small art print to honor the fiddle tune with the same name. It's also meant to honor the idea of "fiddlin' around in the printshop" and allowing the print to develop without a specific plan. It's built with antique newspaper cuts, handset foundry type, relatively recently cast Linotype machine cast ornamentation, and other foundry cast decorative material.
The text on the back reads:
Flat Foot in the Ashes is an ancient-sounding American fiddle tune from central West Virginia. Harvey Sampson recorded this tune in 1986, and released an album named after it. His version of the tune is most likely the version you'll hear today. The fiddle tune has been traced back to the early 19th century. It's an up-lifting jaunty little ditty, to today's ear it almost has a nursery-rhyme quality to it. In the early oughts of this century my buddy Jason Noice taught me this tune, and lent me his fiddle so I could practice on it. I haven't played it in a while, but once this printing is complete, I'll pick up the fiddle and give it a go....
And indeed, here's a quick video of me scratching the tune out while in the printshop.
Clear, sunny days out here at the Foundry. Temperatures reached 80 degrees today, or near so. Which means type was hot today. the crucibles of 3 machines warming the space. We fired up the green body Monotype “OA" to cast decorative typographical ornaments - 14pt 660. Rebecca decreased the body size so that the ornaments will nest together giving it an unintentional border functionality (jeeesh, a clumsy way to say that we are intending to print the type in 90 degree orientation). It will be fun to see the results. The Linotype model 31 was busy and hot, casting 10pt Caledonia 496, Fairfield 538(8pt). I discovered that we have a mixed font of 11pt Caledonia, which means long descenders are mixed in with short descenders. This is a problem, because if you attempt to cast on a 11pt body and a long descender matrix is delivered, molten type metal will make it through the line. AKA a "squirt". That can make things exciting for the person at the keyboard. So the mats will have to be re-sorted. What we discovered: the mats with short descenders are stamped with "S2" on the side of the mat near the triangle number. This will make the sorting job a little easier. Also cast on the Linotype: a galley(ish) of 12pt wave rule. The Ludlow pot was also hot, and I cast some oversized random types that I hope will become a new typographical being named "Anna." She will have purple hair and a log for a nose. This description will make sense if the print is successful. I will share if "Anna" lives. As always, throw in your clutch and lock your keyboard when stepping away from the machine, enjoy your type.... -fiddleink
May 4th, 2026. 11:25PM. Just shut down the machines. At least turned the drive motors off, we'll leave the crucibles hot so they'll be ready to go in the morning. The old cast iron should be happy with a night of radiant warmth. We set up the linotype to cast 8 on 9. 10 on 10 and 14 on 14. We're casting type that will be used to print 9 different writer8s (dang it, bad habit thet 8 as apostrophe) prompt cards, to be distributed at the Clatskanie Raymond Carver Writing Festival that will take place this weekend. The C.C. Foundry Stern Type Foundry team has been assisting in organizing that festival. We cast some Metro Medium designed by our man Dwiggins, as well as 2 sizes of Bodoni Book. I'm having some issues with the 10 point mold, the left side of the slug is .0074" lower than the right, or rather I should say "thinner" not lower - the type to paper height is consistent. Will need to look into that, but for now, some shims on the slugs before locking up will have to suffice. Thanks to the "One Typed Page" community. I've been enjoying folks' submissions My intention is to submit something that is not simply a work-day log entry, but for now this is the typing that I can squeeze in most days. Typing from the entry way at the Foundry: acutely.imaginable.keyboards (what do you think of that? Ha! Appropriate)
