The past ten days or so of blog silence were because I was in Terra Alta WV for Monotype University 8, and what little spare time I had rarely coincided with what few times I had Internet access.
That’s me holding the Heidelberg chase full of the type I cast. Rich Hopkins, who hosted the event and did much of the teaching is beside me in the red apron, and Bill Welliver (behind me in the striped shirt and red T-shirt) was also teaching, focusing on the computer interface he has designed for the caster. Use of this interface frees composition casters of all the hassles of the Monotype Keyboard and handling paper ribbon.
We all started off using a keyboard to punch a ribbon and casting the text on the comp caster, just so we knew how much of a pain this was. I spent the better part of a day punching and casting about 10 lines of type. Compared to that using the computer interface is a breeze.
At one point while casting the mould got too hot and some lines did not cast very well, so I recast them after the rest of the job. Here I am at the stone separating the replacement lines so I can insert them in their proper place in the text. Before finishing I had to clear some clutter off the stone to give me more room to slide things around.
I’m unsure of the copyright status of the material I cast so I won’t show the finished page here, but it was the beginning of the story “Etaoin Shrdlu” by Fredric Brown. Somehow a story about a possessed linecaster seemed appropriate for this occasion. Needless to say, this much text was cast with the computer interface; there was no way I could ever keyboard all that in correctly!
Here’s my diploma. I had brought along some of our handmade paper, and the people printing the diplomas opted for this 8½×11″ abaca paper with asparagus needles.
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