Letterpress printing has a property called “ink gain” where the inked area left on the printed sheet is a tiny bit larger than the type used to do the printing. Because of this, when designing type (which includes designing the…
Category: Equipment
More information on Matrix pneumatic valves
This week I was having another look at the pneumatic solenoid valves I want to use to run my Monotype from a computer. I was somewhat disappointed that the valves I had were the Normally Open (N/O) type and designed…
Cleaning up the pantograph
The Gorton 3U pantograph engraver/mill I just bought needed a bit of fixing up. Some of the bearings in the mechanism were loose, things were dry (of oil) and pretty dirty, and there was a drive belt missing. I have…
More Equipment!
The main reason for my visit to Don Black last Friday was to pick up a new (to me) machine. This is a Gorton 3U pantograph mill/engraver, which turned up when Don and Craig were reorganizing their stock. This machine…
Cleaning up unearths a treasure—a month late
I did a round of cleaning up in the shop, partly to search for my missing mat holder, and partly because I picked up more parts from Don Black. While cleaning up, I found the box of stuff I picked…
Measuring air valve spring strength
In addition to poor flow when open, the other shortcoming of my stock of surplus Matrix pneumatic valves is poor sealing (leakage) when operated in NC mode, where the shutter spring is the only force holding back the flow of…
Measuring air valve shutters
Looking deeper into the poor airflow observed on my stock of surplus Matrix pneumatic valves, I did a subjective measurement of the airflow on each port, on a scale from 0 to 5, using a 20PSI supply. At zero, the…
Pneumatic valves for Monotype computer control
The most expensive and bulky aspect of making a system for computer control of the Monotype composition caster is the pneumatic solenoid valves. You need 31 valves, and they typically cost $30-$50 each. They are generally large enough that they…
Cleaning and refilling the Monotype pot
For the casting job I have coming up I want to use Monotype medium alloy (74/10/16% Pb/Sn/Sb) rather than the softer Linotype alloy (84/4/12%) currently in the pot, which I was using to cast spacing. To do this, I got…
More store rearranging
This week we had to get a fresh bale of bleached abaca pulp down from the upper tier of the racking in our store. This meant clearing a path for the forklift, which in turn meant moving almost everything. We…
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