Previously-unseen Casting Problem

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in Font Casting, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

I ran into this casting fault when making a font of 36-point Lanston #675 Bodoni Ultra. I’ve never had this happen before and I haven’t seen this problem mentioned in any of the literature.

The type is developing, for lack of a better term, a zit. The problem gets worse in successive casts and if the caster (or at least the pump) isn’t stopped the next zit is big enough to break off, prevent seating of the matrix on the next cycle, and cause a large low-pressure squirt of molten type metal.

It would appear that the matrix is lifting off the face of the type before a thick enough skin has formed to contain the pressurized metal and entrapped air. This allows the metal to squirt out onto the face of the type. Bodoni Ultra seems particularly prone to this because of the deep sharp-edged counters.

For other less bold faces the same conditions might result instead in a sort of bulging face on the type, where the pressure pushes the face up but does not penetrate it.

This can happen when the matrix becomes hot from repeated casts, which is why casting starts off fine but eventually this happens. A solution would be to run the caster a bit slower to allow complete hardening of the metal, but when I tried this I started getting nozzle freezes instead.

I think another cure would be to take steps to keep the mat holder cooler so it can sink some of the matrix heat.

This casting run was using an English display mould and the special 49A holder for using Lanston matrices on the English mould.

A similar problem, known as “bleeding feet”, can occur if the jet is cut off before the metal is sufficiently hardened, allowing a similar blob of metal to squirt out of the foot of the type.

Improved Monotype Parts Storage

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

Over the summer we’ve been fixing up another storage room and it is finally finished enough to start storing things in it!

The first thing to go in is my collection of Monotype parts. Up until now these cases have been stacked up on a pallet making them difficult to access, especially when the pallet itself has been moved into a corner to get them out of the way.

They are now instead on heavy-duty shelving, making them much easier to access and keep organized.

This also removes one big obstacle from the store/workshop proper.

Marshville Heritage Festival, Oct 31st-Sept 2nd 2024

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in Past Events — No Comments ↓

This Labor Day weekend the annual Marshville Heritage Festival will be held in Wainfleet, Ontario, on the grounds operated by the Marshville Heritage Society next to the Wainfleet Arena at 31943 Park Street.

The Festival features attractions including a classic car display, old tractors and other farm implements, and an old sawmill. Up until 2022 this mill was steam powered, but a lack of a licensed boiler operator who has the time to get the steam plant up and running from a year’s disuse means it will probably be powered by an electric or gas motor instead. There are also demonstrations of other crafts such as weaving and candy-making, musical entertainment, plenty of kids’ activities, and lots of food.

The attractions include the print shop featuring a working Whitlock newspaper press operated by the Mackenzie Printery and Newspaper Museum. The Printery will also be operating a Ludlow Typograph to cast single lines of type for visitors, and will offer various printing-related items including old cuts, typecases, and printed ephemera in trade for donations to the museum. A small Adana tabletop press will be set up so visitors can print their own keepsake bookmark, and our year-at-a-glance calendars (printed on the Whitlock) will also be available.

The fair is open 10-5 each day and admission is $8 for adults, $7 for seniors, free for children under 10, with plenty of free parking (enter off Side Road 20).

(Un)Plugging Cooling Water Passages

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — 1 Comment ↓

One of the moulds for my Monotype Composition Caster, specifically the type U Lanston display mould fitted for 36 point body size, had completely blocked cooling water passages. This would seriously limit how fast the caster could run, even more so than the already slow speeds recommended for such large type.

There is a tool which can be attached to the underside of a mould, which fits two small cylinders to the cooling water ports, allowing one to install a small piston and, by striking this with a hammer, force liquid through the cooling passages under high pressure. This is often useful for minor blockages, but seemed to have no effect on this particular mould.

In order to clear out the passages, I disassembled the mould well beyond the recommended amount, even removing the intermediate base from the main base. This is not a recommended procedure because it loses the factory-set alignments of the parts. It is, however, the only way to reach all the water passages, or at least to understand how they are connected. Now that I know their layout I may find it possible to clean them without this extreme disassembly.

In the process I’ve mapped out the water and oil passages, something to be documented in a future post perhaps.

The cooling passages are a series of drilled holes that intersect within the parts of the mould, with brass screws plugging most of the drill entry holes. Together these holes join to form a continuous single path for water flow through the mould.

Clearing the passages involves drilling into them as was done at the factory, but this time the drill removes the blockage (probably mostly consisting of iron oxides and old oil) rather than steel. Unfortunately, most of the brass screws were either filed flush to the surrounding surface and so had no screwdriver slot any more, or were sufficiently seized in their holes, that they had to be drilled out too.

This leaves the problem of replacing the screws, the main point of this post. Read more ›

Howard Iron Works Print Expo & Fair, September 28th 2024

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in Howard Iron Works Print Expo & Fair, Upcoming Events, Us — No Comments ↓

Howard Iron Works will be holding their Print Expo & Fair for 2024 on Saturday, September 28th, at their premises at 800 Westgate Road, Oakville, Ontario.

In addition to the vendors’ tables, the advance notice promises museum tours, demonstrations and workshops.

We plan on having a table at this fair, selling a selection of our paper, marbling, and supplies for bookbinding and marbling.

My Presentation from the 2012 ATF Conference

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in American Typecasting Fellowship, Composition Caster, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

Someone recently asked about serial number locations on Monotype Composition Casters, and I knew I had a sort of list of where these were located.

This information turned out to be in a presentation I gave at the 2012 American Typecasting Fellowship conference on Portland Oregon, entitled “Part Sourcing for a Frankencaster” wherein I discussed my adventures in mix & match parts acquisition for my Comp Caster.

This predates the start of this blog by about 2 years, so I thought I’d post about it now, as I have just placed the Powerpoint file on our web site. Although in this presentation I mused about making some of the parts I wanted, I subsequently have managed to obtain original parts from other casters. I think I even have all I need for Unit Shift, but have not tried using it.

I am still left, though, trying to find a Unit Adding attachment for my caster. I saw one in action (mind you, intermittently and unwanted) at last year’s ATF conference in the Portland, Maine area.

In case you care, the serial number locations I found were:

  • The top of the main table
  • The nameplate on the paper tower
  • The top of the type channel right block
  • The right-hand end of the front pin block
  • The rear end of the rear pin block
  • The end of the galley directly facing the operator’s position

An Old Type Foundry Price List

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in Other people, Things we sell, Type Casting, Us — No Comments ↓

Well, not so old, really, dating to the end of the era of large commercial type foundries. This is the June 1973 pricing pages for the Moore Type Foundry, 431 King Street West in Toronto. I found their catalogue amongst some books I was sorting through at the Mackenzie Printery Museum.It isn’t clear how large “a font” is for them, but for instance, the first entry for 6 to 9 points states that a font of caps or lowercase is about 3 pounds and costs $12.00. This would imply that their font schemes vary by point size so all fonts are about the same weight. This makes some sense as it means you need about the same number of fonts to fill a typecase regardless of the size.

Looking at other prices it seems the general price is about $4 per pound overall. Prices are a bit higher for smaller sizes (under 10pt), I guess to cover the fiddly nature of smaller type.

For some strange reason, condensed, script, and in particular Univers cost more.

The only thing substantially cheaper is strip material which, except for 1-point, costs $0.56 per pound. Of course, 1-point leading is very fussy to cast, so costs about twice as much.

It is clear from the remainder of the catalog that this foundry casts from Lanston Monotype matrices; you can tell from the series numbers used to identify the faces.

The second pricing page refers to “imported type” which I assume was not cast in Toronto, but imported from elsewhere (like the USA). Most of the faces named were not produced by English Monotype Corporation, so they are probably from American Type Founders (ATF, which was still in business at the time) from their own matrices. The Eurostile face is likely imported from Italy, since Nebiolo (I assume they also made the Nebitype type-casting machine) was the company that produced it.

Inflation in Canada since 1973 has increased prices pretty much seven-fold (reference here but beware the site has obnoxious ads) and based on that I think my current pricing for cast type (somewhere in the range of $15/pound) is quite a bargain, about half the $28-ish per pound that inflation would suggest.

Right now I cast type using one of four fixed schemes, and perhaps I should instead be trying to make packages of fixed weight. This would make it easier for me to have a more specific price list, but that would be replaced by the equivalent problem of describing a different font scheme for each size and face.

More Marbling—At Last!

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in Kevin, Marbling, Things we sell — No Comments ↓

After a long hiatus, I’ve had a chance to do some marbling.

The driving force was actually the necessity to test a new sample of carragheenan. We’re currently out of stock, and as usual, the last source we bought from is no longer available so we have to try a new supplier. Thus the need for me to test out the sample from the new supplier.

Fortunately, this product works great! I had essentially no problems with streaking of the marbled pattern, and the only paint contamination in the marbling tray is from some paint I applied too heavily causing some of it to sink to the bottom of the tray.

Now we have to figure out the other bugaboo for small businesses like ours: How to order less than a truckload!

CBBAG Ottawa Book Arts Show and Sale, May 25th, 2024

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in CBBAG Book Arts Fair, Kevin, Past Events — No Comments ↓

This year the Ottawa chapter of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild (CBBAG) will be holding their Book Arts Show and Sale at the recently-opened Carleton University MacOdrum Library Book Arts Lab, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario.

The fair will be held Saturday, May 25th, 2024 and runs from 9am to 4pm. Their web site should offer more details as the time approaches.

We will have a table at this fair, offering for sale a selection of our handmade paper, marbling, and some bookbinding supplies.

Grimsby Wayzgoose, April 27th, 2024

Posted on by kpmartin Posted in Grimsby Wayzgoose, Past Events, Us — No Comments ↓

The 46th Grimsby Wayzgoose Book Arts Fair will be held on Saturday, April 27th, 2024, at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery and Library, 18 Carnegie Lane, Grimsby, Ontario.

The fair will feature over 50 exhibitors of varied book arts, including hand paper making, paper marbling, bookbinding, and private press printers. There will be items like books, cards, prints, and paper, both as giveaways and for sale.

We’ll have a table at the fair, with handmade paper, marbling, and some bookbinding supplies for sale.

As usual, there is also a Wayzgoose Anthology being produced, featuring sections contributed by many of the fair participants. Unfortunately, we did not have time to contribute this year, so we’ll have to purchase our own copy.

The fair will be open from 9am to 5pm, and admission is free.

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