April 25th. Saturday. 2026. Old Tolbert Lanston threw a doozy at us today - we spent about 9 hours trouble-shooting a problem with the comp caster. The type coming off of the machine is looking really clean and solid. However, the composition was whack. We're casting 10pt Scotch Roman 36A. We pulled the bridge several tines. Shot the wedges with compressed air. Cleaned, oiled, cleaned, oiled. Tweaked draw rods. Adjusted transfer wedge shifter lever arm locking stud. But the matrix case still occasionally jumped out of position. Often enough that it is a big problem. Maybe "jump" isn't the best way to describe the issue - the mat case "jiggled" and a "jiggle" on a precision type-casting machine is not a desirable thing. I fear that the problem could be with the Jaw-tong spring box, which will mean & time-intensive tear down. Hopefully that's not it - good chance that In over thinking the problem. It's been a long day. As drained as I am, I love the fact that all of this work has been done in the name of poetry. The type that we are casting will be used to print one postcard in the C.C. Stern Type Foundry Poetry postcard print series. It's a good poem, so it's worth it. Ha! If you've made it to the end of this entry, you bay be interested in seeing pics of the machine that I just described, I posted pictures on my blog at FIDDLEINK. Thanks for reading.
Sorts test. Type looks nice. Composition does not.
Video above shows the mat case “wiggle.”