When I got this press earlier this year, I printed off a nice copy of the instructions. Challenge Machinery still exists, and their web site is quite useful in that they seem to be trying their best to have manuals…
Category: Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance
Repairing the other Monotype nozzle
While trying to do some composition casting recently, I concluded that the nozzle on my caster was worn or damaged, causing it to leak profusely, and the spare nozzle I had on hand was in even worse condition. I repaired…
March 2nd Casting Session: A Modicum of Success
The first job was to address the problem of the magnetic starter tripping out every few lines. I found online several documents regarding the pulsing nature of the current drawn on the input of a VFD. I think the pulsing…
March 1st Casting Session
This morning I checked the angular alignment of the nozzle on my caster and found that it was off a tiny bit, so I adjusted that. I also reset the nozzle to its proper center position on the assumption that…
The Broken Pin Wrench Resurfaces
While testing out the new Operating Lever Latch Spring on my Monotype caster, I heard a clunk as something fell to the floor. It turned out to be the broken pin wrench I had lost inside the caster a couple…
A New Spring for the Operating Lever Latch
While doing my last few casting sessions I noticed another part missing from my Monotype caster. There is a lever, called the Operating Lever, which controls the engagement of a clutch on the motor drive; essentially this is the lever…
February 23rd Casting Session
Last Sunday was another frustrating day of casting. The only way I could get the nozzle to seal even remotely well was to have it clearly out of alignment, so it was moving sideways every time it rose and dropped.…
Misdiagnosis Results in Broken Part
Last Saturday I tried again to do a run of composition casting. At some point, the galley mechanism stopped working, and a very long line developed in the galley. I stopped casting and looked for the cause of the problem.…
A Manual Punch for Monotype Ribbons
In the process of patching together the only ribbon I have for my Monotype, some of the holes have been blocked and needed to be re-punched. Furthermore, repairing the edges of the ribbon requires re-punching all the tractor holes. Finally,…
Composition Casting Followup: Type Carrier Repair
While trying to do some composition casting last weekend I found that an internal part of my type carrier was broken, so I had to give this part a quick servicing. There aren’t actually that many internal parts to deal…
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