Today I used my pycnometer and precision scale to measure the specific gravity of the glycerin which we sell and which I use when I’m trying out recipes for home-made composition rollers. I started taking a video of this procedure…
Category: Equipment
18 Point Frustration
I have some display casting to do in 18 point on my Monotype Composition Caster, but I’m having a tough time finding a set of accessories that will work together to accomplish this. My original intent was to use my…
Fixing up a laboratory scale
Several years ago I purchased at an auction a laboratory scale for doing precision weighing. Up until now it has sat in a corner collecting dust, covered with auction stickers and missing one cover. I recently undertook to clean and…
A pycnometer
That’s ‘pyc’ sounding like an ice ‘pick,’ ‘n’ as you would expect, and the rest rhymes with ‘barometer’ with the ‘nom’ being the stressed syllable. This is a fancy name for a container which can be filled to a very…
Preparing to cast some type
Someone has asked me to cast some type to fill out a font they already have. For reasons unknown, he has almost no capital S and is also short on capital C and T. He mailed me a sample type…
Crazy Sharp!
This morning I was setting up some paper to cut on our guillotine. I was positioning the stack of paper under the clamp when I noticed that the edge of the clamp didn’t feel “right” against my knuckle. That’s when…
Refurbishing the Sigwalt Press
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…
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
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
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