Category: Composition Caster

My Presentation from the 2012 ATF Conference

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

An Excellent Film for English Monotype Operators

That is, for people who operate an English Monotype Composition Caster (as opposed to the American Lanston Monotype machine). Even more specifically, given the mix of English and American equipment now in use, for users of English composition moulds. There

Lanston Monotype Wedge Substitutions

Based on the data from Alembic Press’s Monotype information, there are a few normal wedges that are interchangeable. So far, this is just theoretical, so I haven’t tried this. And of course, any errors in my source data will reflect

Mystery Matcase Solved!

Thanks to Mark K. Digre on the Letterpress mailing list, I think the mystery of the strangely-sized cellular matrices has been solved! The mechanism for using this matcase is described in US patent number 1079321. Essentially, the caster is fitted

Monotype Pump Stroke Counter Tweak

Although I thought I had the pump stroke counter on my Monotype working, I recently did some casting and found it still wasn’t counting properly. Fiddling with the magnet and sensor position didn’t seem to help. The job probably could

Now I know…

…why the Monotype manuals say not to raise or lower the pot unless it is molten. They never explained why this could cause any problems, and the pump piston linkage is jointed enough to follow the pot up and down

18 Point Mould in Pieces Again

With my test casting using the American display mould set up for 18 points I found that the feet of the type were wider (pointwise) than the heads of the type. This was probably due to dirt being caught between

Making a US Display Mould Spacer—Roughing

I’ve started making an 18-point spacer for one of my US Monotype display moulds per the drawing in my last post. The material I started with was ⅜×¾″ hot-rolled steel because I had a piece handy. The bar was about

US Display Mould Spacer Dimensions

I’ve measured all the spacers I have for US Monotype Display mould blade kits. There are two styles (long and short) which correspond to the style of blade front (thin or thick respectively). This drawing shows both superimposed: There seemed

One of my new Monotype books

One of the books I recently acquired from Don Black has the rather bland title Function and Operation of the 15-17 Casting Machine but after reading this book, I see how the subtitles reveal its true importance: Including Supplementary Equipment

Tagged with:
Top