This Saturday I’ll be attending a one-day workshop on beekeeping. Audrey saw a notice posted at KwartzLab about upcoming workshops, and, since I clearly don’t have enough hobbies to keep me busy, I thought I would give it a go.…
Category: Letterpress
Adventures in Matrix Copying – Part 3
My last post on this subject showed the initial copper plating almost covering the graphite. An hour or two of further plating produced a nice bright copper layer over the entire surface of the rubber mould. The plating was fairly…
Defective Column Pusher Spring Box Fixed
A while ago I made a new spring for the operating lever latch on my Monotype caster, based on specifications passed to me by Bill Welliver. The problem was that when the line length was incorrect, the column pusher was…
Challenge Proof Press Lockup Bar Working
My previous post described my confusion as to how the lockup bar for my Challenge proof press works. As I mentioned in a comment to that post, I found my answer online in US patent number 3288062 which shows how…
Challenge Proof Press Lockup Bar
One part of my Challenge MA15 proof press that I cannot figure out is the lockup bar, used as a quick way of clamping the type in position on the bed. The bar has a locking lever which turns an…
A Trip to West Virginia
The display matrices I had purchased in the recent Anderson auction were heavy enough that it would have cost several hundred dollars to ship them. Instead I took a couple of days to drive to Terra Alta, WV, to visit…
Tagged with: Rich Hopkins
Adventures in Matrix Copying – Part 2
My first attempt at making a rubber mould of a Lanston display matrix ended up with a fatal flaw due to an air bubble. I made a second attempt, hoping to avoid repeating this flaw. The instructions for the casting…
Adventures in Matrix Copying
One thing I have wanted to try for a while was the duplication of a Lanston Monotype display matrix. It it probably not worth the trouble to copy an entire font of mats, but it would be useful for replacing…
A New Pin Wrench
When I was fixing my Monotype caster to do some composition casting a few months ago, I broke the small pin wrench that I use for turning some of the adjustments on the caster. The wrench seemed to be too…
Rubber feet for the Challenge Proof Press
Proof presses are subjected to a lot of sideways forces when used, caused by the carriage hitting its stops at either end of its stroke. These can be reduced by slowing down near the end of the stroke, but there…
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