Category: Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance

Putting the air tower back onto my Monotype caster

Inspired by my recent attendance at Monotype U 8, and given that I kept the ribbon I had punched on the keyboard there, I have decided to reinstall the paper tower which I had removed from my Monotype caster when

The Monotype pump, all assembled and working!

This is the culmination of a long three-pronged refitting of the pump on my Monotype composition caster. The three parts were disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling the pump head mechanism, refitting a pump latch mechanism scavenged from another caster, and making

Monotype piston rod finished

The extended-stroke piston rod I was making for my Monotype caster is now finished. Now that it is off the mill, cleaned up, and has its handle put on it looks so much like it could have been a factory-made

Monotype piston rod—Mounted on mill, ready for cutting

After finishing one side of the extended-stroke piston rod for my Monotype, I took apart all the work holders and gave the mill a bit of a cleaning. The rod has now been clamped down to the milling table with

Monotype piston rod milling half-completed

With the flats completed on the piston rod, it was time to mill the groove by which the piston is raised and lowered. This took quite a bit of time as I had the mill running at very conservative feed

Finally working on the Monotype piston rod again

It has been a while but I finally got around to working on the extended-stroke piston rod for my Monotype caster’s pump tonight. A while ago I had drilled and tapped the end hole for the handle. I was fortunate

A little more cleaning on the Monotype Pump

Finishing the new extended-stroke piston rod is taking a little longer than planned, so in the meantime I decided to clean the piston and pump body lever mechanism. This is what transmits the pump spring pressure to the pump proper.

New Monotype Pump Spring Rod (sort of)

After realizing that I could not make a new pump rod for my Monotype caster on my lathe (the lathe bed was not long enough), I considered several ways to get around this problem. As it turns out the solution

Monotype Pump Latch R&R Completed

The reconditioning of the pump latch for my Monotype caster is now complete. I found some donors for the missing screws in my parts stock. There were two of the actual latch trigger assemblies there (but not the rest of

So much for a part being easy to make…

I thought the new spring rod I have to make for my Monotype pump would be relatively easy to do, after all, it is just a length of 5/8″ round rod threaded at both ends. The problem is that my

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