The Sigwalt press we recently bought was dirty, the paint was chipped and worn thin in places, and there were a few spots of rust as well. It also had no roller trucks and the gripper spring was bent out…
Category: Things we do
Papertrail at Heart and Hand Festival 2014
Next Saturday, September 27th from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Joseph Schneider Haus in Kitchener will be holding its annual Heart and Hand Festival as part of Culture Days. This event will be part indoors and part outdoors, and will…
Quick Roller Diameter Gauge
In letterpress printing it is often necessary to check the diameter of various rollers in the press. In general the rollers that transfer ink eventually to the forme have to be of a consistent diameter so that the ink is…
New (to me) Monotype documents
Late last week I picked up a pile of Monotype manuals and other publications from Don Black. These were generally duplicates to ones he already has. Many of these documents are ones I already have as well, although some are…
Tagged with: Don Black
Mulberry damage
This weekend while mowing the lawn I found that several branches of my mulberry bush had bent flat onto the ground. Some still appeared healthy but others were wilted. It would seem that some animal had eaten all the bark…
Storage box for brasses and coppers
In setting type for letterpress, very thin spaces are sometimes required to fill in a line to match the length of adjacent ones so that everything is held tight when locked into the chase. The spaces are known as brasses…
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…
Tagged with: Firefly Press
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…
Electroformed Matrix: the Reveal
During a lull at the recent ATF conference, I took the opportunity to remove the matrix I had electroformed from its rubber mould and pass it around. The matrix copy appears to have excellent detail. Unfortunately, the matrix copy is…
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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