Category: Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance

Things from the parts heap at Firefly Press

These are a few of the things I scrounged from the parts heap at Firefly Press in Boston on the departure day from the recent ATF conference. The first is a bit of an oddity. I’ve never seen it in

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More Spring-Making

Over the past few months, Jason Dewinetz at Greenboathouse Press has been working on getting his Supercaster running, but he was having trouble casting 14 point type from American-style display matrices. He was finding that he had to run his

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Another composition caster rule repaired

One of the items I picked up at the swap meet of the recent ATF conference was a brand-new-old-stock Rule Guide Pin (c39F1) for the Monotype Composition Caster. This not only let me verify the dimensions I had from my

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Our New Baby!

Through a Kijiji ad, we found that the Goodwill store in London ON had a small press for sale. We finally had to chance to go have a look at it (it helped that the London Lee Valley store was

Monotype Galley Fence Repair

The Monotype caster has a part called a fence which separates the accumulating line of type from previous lines already pushed onto the galley. This fence has a guide pin at the rear end which fits into a hole in

Determining the evaporation rate in my basement workshop

One of the things I noted when trying to electroform a Monotype matrix last May was that by the time I put that project on hold, half of my plating electrolyte had vanished. I was using an open tank so

Composition Mat Cases In Their Final Home

I have catalogued the contents of all the composition matcases, both the ones from Rich Hopkins and the dozen or so that I already had in various locations. The cases have also been placed in their permanent home (barring major

Composition Matrix Cases Finished and Filled

The first set of five cases I made to hold Monotype composition matcases turned out to be insufficient to hold them all. I have since made two more cases, and have placed all the matcases I received from Rich Hopkins

Finished Composition Matrix Cases—Just One Problem

I have completed my five cases for holding Monotype composition matcases. Despite my efforts to get the grooves uniformly deep, I found after assembling the cases that some grooves were too shallow. This meant that I spent a lot of

Cases for Monotype Composition Matrices

I returned from picking up my display matrix purchases with several matcases of composition mats as well, and so far I have no good place to keep them. The few I had have been stored in the same drawer as

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