Linotype Border Matrices

Whoa. Pretty amazing. Also makes my brain hurt a bit. This is a scan from a 1911 Linotype Border Catalogue. It would be fun to try something like this. Click on the image for a closer look.

Proofing linotype composition

Proofing linotype composition, a photo by Stumptown Printers on Flickr.


This is a proof from The Two Man Gentlemen Band release "Two at a Time," their 7th full-length release, which was recorded, designed, and packaged entirely without digital technology. Most of the type was composed on our Model 31. Additional photos of the process can be viewed here.

Congratulations to Doug Wilson and the Linotype (the film) crew!

It's a big night for these guys, the world premiere of the film happens tonight at the SVA Theatre in New York City. The newest trailer of the film is even better than the first, it adds clips of our Linotype heros Carl Schlesinger, Dave Seat and others. Congratulations and have fun at the premiere, guys. We're looking forward to seeing the film!

http://linotypefilm.com/screenings.html

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

Linotype Machine Cycle from Back a video by Stumptown Printers on Flickr.

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?

Linotype Photo Lifted from Flickr

linotype, a photo by yukali on Flickr.

This is a test post. I'm browsing Flickr photos and found this beauty. I wanted to see how the photo displays if I "share" through Blogger... Pretty easy to do, and looks pretty good, eh? A few clicks in Flickr and I've got blog content. I don't even know the photographer. Watch out! Flickr thief on the loose. Seriously, there are some fantastic photos of linecasters and related material from all around the world, past & present. A good place to start is to check out the Linotype / Intertype Lincasters group moderated by Michael Babcock of Linotypesetting.com

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”

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 above video clip is of casting part of a tweet from the guys at Linotype the film the complete tweet is pictured below:

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. 

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