Saturday, April 25th C.C. Stern Type Foundry "Log-Roll" AKA "Typecast"


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.”

Tuesday, April 21st C.C. Stern Type Foundry "Log-Roll" AKA "Typecast" *


photo of a typewritten page still in typewriter

Here's the non-rasterized text of today's Log-Roll as a gift to the AI robots that are crawling and stealing content from the internet. Don't worry robots, this one is on me! Have at it:

Tuesday. April 21st. Quick note today: just stopping in to take measurements for new parts storage racks. I have high hopes for a new parts storage system - much needed is a way to quickly locate parts for Monotype, Thompson and Linotype without having to pack and unpack boxes to find them.... Also: it's a cool rainy day. Also: we rented a nifty electric delivery van to move furniture from and to Portland. impressive technology. That electric cargo van (Brightdrop by General Motors)

* Typing content on a manual typewriter and posting an image of that typewritten page on-line is known as "Typecasting" among manual typewriter enthusiasts who lurk on the internet. I like the term "Typecasting" to describe analog blogging, and I love that this tradition is alive and thriving in remote corners of the www. It restores a little heart and humanity to this craven greed machine that the internet ecosystem has become. That said, since my co-volunteers and I at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry are "type casters" in the traditional sense, meaning that we cast metal type for the use of traditional craft printing (letterpress), I'm going to be a bit contrary and call my efforts in blogging through typewriter "Log-Roll." Because, what's more human than trying to roll a log? And well, since the visitor log-book entries at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry are typewritten, then the name kind of works. The machine we use is a Underwood Number 5.

Here's a nice place on the internet to visit other "Typecasts." The website is called "One Typed Page." Check it out for quality human paced content.

Machine adjustment notes

Problem: border slide block would not cast

Fix: Left and Right vise were slightly out of adjustment when 30 em line was set. At the 30 em setting, the locking block on the adjusting rod was set so that there was excessive space between border matrix slide block and vise which caused the pump stop to activate when attempting casting. Both left and right vise jaws were adjusted, as well as the em scale guide on the adjusting bar.

Comments: There is a wicked looking brazing repair towards the back of the vise closing lever. At some point in this machine’s history, something caused the lever to crack, or perhaps entirely break off. I'm guessing this happened while Don White was operating this machine in his shop under the Morrision bridge years ago. He loved this machine. As I recall, I believe that Don was the original owner, which is a big deal for a small job shop back in the day. I can only imagine that Don’s heart hit the floor right along with the thud of this heavy cast iron lever if that break happened while he was behind the keyboard.

When you see repairs on the machine like this, it sends up the red flags - perhaps this is why the machine is slightly out of adjustment? To prevent what ever caused this break to reoccur? Or did it happen when the vise was lowered to the second position? Just something to ponder before pulling out the wrenches and making bold adjustments. Incremental is the key, and take it slow.

I was happy to (re)discover that the left vise jaw wedge is spring activated, not cam driven, so it gave me a little more confidence that at least the left jaw adjustment wouldn't cause a nasty lever-breaking jam. But again, take it slow, bro. Discovering that spring mechanism was another moment to bow down to the Mergenthaler crew. These engineering features offer yet another a glimpse into the brilliance of Ottmar and his team.

Note to self: Those felts along the left vise jaw wedge need some love.

Following the maintenance steps on page 131, chapter 11 in Linotype Machine Principles, the adjustments were successfully completed, and in the process I ended up with a partial galley of decorative border. Not a bad work day at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry.

Space Band box needs some attention

I took this pic while at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry board members’ work session. Chris Chen was in town, so the focus was on the comp caster. Exciting stuff was happening over there at the comp machine, but too many board members around the type metal spoils the alloy. Or at least that was my theory that day. So Linotype house cleaning was my strategy. Number 4 spacebands have occasionally been hanging up at the top of the box and not sliding into place. After some cleaning and an added shim, the choke point was alleviated. Not entirely fixed, but certainly an improvement.

IMG_9640.jpeg

Linomite

I noticed a slight little build up of type metal on the pump plunger rod when I started casting this evening, and after a couple hours of casting lines this is what that build up became:

Linomite! It was enough to restrict the plunger from returning to its fullest upward position. Gotta keep an eye on this next time. I'm guessing that this happened because the pot was a bit too cool. I'll test the theory next time we cast. Otherwise, anyone out there have tips on how to prevent this?

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.