the Papertrail
type: channel
date: 2025-10-29T19:41:17Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: BOUND Book Arts Fair, December 7th, 2025
items: Whitlock Timing Issue?
items: Ludlow Throat Heater Replacement
items: Su-making Workshop at Bishop’s University
items: Dredging up Old Junk in My Mind
items: Casting Disaster!
items: Marshville Heritage Festival, Aug 30th-Sept 1st 2025
items: New Monotype Control PCB Test
items: Our New Type-and-rule Caster in Motion
items: A PCB for the Monotype Computer Interface

BOUND Book Arts Fair, December 7th, 2025
type: item
date: 2025-10-29T19:41:17Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: BOUND Book Arts Fair
subject: Us
description: The annual BOUND Book Arts Fair will take place this year on Saturday, December 7th, 2025, at the Arts & Letters Club, 14 Elm Street, in Toronto (just west off Yonge, a block south of Gerrard). This fair will feature… Read more ›
encoded: The annual BOUND Book Arts Fair will take place this year on Saturday, December 7th, 2025, at the Arts & Letters Club, 14 Elm Street, in Toronto (just west off Yonge, a block south of Gerrard). This fair will feature limited edition handmade books, artist’s books, prints, broadsides, cards, ephemera, and more. We’ll have a table there (on the third floor) selling paper, both marbled and handmade, bookbinding tools and supplies, as well as a few letterpress things too! The fair is open from 11am-5pm and admission is free.

Whitlock Timing Issue?
type: item
date: 2025-10-28T15:40:43Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance
subject: Kevin
subject: Mackenzie Printery and Newspaper Museum
description: When setting up the Mackenzie Printery‘s Whitlock press for this summer’s Marshville Heritage Festival, I noticed that the press bed has a line marked across it clearly labeled “H L”. I assume this stands for “Head Line”, which is the line… Read more ›
encoded: When setting up the Mackenzie Printery‘s Whitlock press for this summer’s Marshville Heritage Festival, I noticed that the press bed has a line marked across it clearly labeled “H L”. I assume this stands for “Head Line”, which is the line on the bed which aligns with the leading edge of the sheet of paper (or, perhaps, just clears the grippers). I had noticed that the actual forme of type on the bed, which was printing at the correct place on the paper, was well over this line and in fact almost hanging over the edge of the bed. I felt this might be an issue with the timing of the press. I took a copy of the poster that had just been printed, placed it on the inked forme still in the press (in the same orientation as the original impression), with the edge of the paper lined up with the “H L” mark, and rubbed the back of the paper to take a crude impression of the form. The two impressions were about 1⅛″ apart. This made me feel that the bed was off by a tooth in the gearing that drives it. I also took an impression of the bed drive gear using the oil/grease that was on it, and determined that the drive rack had a pitch of ¾″. Later, when the forme had been removed, I placed some lumps of Plasticine on the press bed to measure exactly how the edges of the impression area of the cylinder lined up with the bed. This required a bit of timing finesse and manual turning of the press to get good measurements rather than just smearing off the top of the Plasticine. This is how things looked at the leading edge; unfortunately, camera perspective distorts the apparent measurements off the measuring tape. The 7″ mark lines up with the “H L” line, and the impression in the Plasticine is about at the 5⅞″ mark, confirming my other measurement.<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-4453" src="https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Leading-edge-1024x1003.jpg" alt="" width="605" height="593" srcset="https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Leading-…

Ludlow Throat Heater Replacement
type: item
date: 2025-10-28T14:36:35Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance
subject: Kevin
subject: Mackenzie Printery and Newspaper Museum
subject: Ludlow Typograph
description: Last year I had noticed that the Ludlow Typograph Model L at the Mackenzie Printery was taking a long time to warm up and was also producing poor slugs unless it was casting more or less continuously. Some investigation with… Read more ›
encoded: Last year I had noticed that the Ludlow Typograph Model L at the Mackenzie Printery was taking a long time to warm up and was also producing poor slugs unless it was casting more or less continuously. Some investigation with an ohmmeter revealed that the throat heater circuit was open. The pot on the Ludlow has three heaters, a main one for the pot proper, one for the mouthpiece that contacts the mould when casting, and one for the throat which is a passage between the pump and the mouthpiece. With the throat heater out of commission, the only thing keeping the type metal in the throat molten was conduction from the main pot or constant flow of metal from the main pot by casting a lot. The Printery had a collection of used and new-old-stock Ludlow throat heaters, part of a donation of items from Ruth Black a few years ago, so I started working on replacing the heater. This requires removing the pot, which in turn pretty much requires draining the pot (though even then it is still quite heavy). Once the pot is removed it can be flipped over and the covers for the throat heater and underside wiring can be removed. I left the wiring from the controller to the pot connected, so I had the pot perched on a chair behind the caster.<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-4442" src="https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Old-heater-1024x270.jpg" alt="" width="605" height="160" srcset="https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Old-heater-1024x270.jpg 1024w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Old-heater-300x79.jpg 300w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Old-heater-768x202.jpg 768w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Old-heater-1536x405.jpg 1536w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Old-heater-100x26.jpg 100w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Old-heater-150x40.jpg 150w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Old-heater-200x53.jpg 200w, h…

Su-making Workshop at Bishop’s University
type: item
date: 2025-10-09T14:35:28Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: Hand Papermaking
subject: Kevin
subject: Other people
subject: Past Events
subject: Workshops
subject: Alexandre Bonton
subject: Bishop's University
description: Last weekend, along with about ten other people, I attended a 2-day workshop on making (and using) a su (screen for Japanese-style paper making). The workshop was hosted in and around the Molson building at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville (Sherbrooke)… Read more ›
encoded: Last weekend, along with about ten other people, I attended a 2-day workshop on making (and using) a su (screen for Japanese-style paper making). The workshop was hosted in and around the Molson building at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville (Sherbrooke) Québec. This event was organized by Régine Neumann, who teaches at Bishop’s, and Alexandre Bonton ran the actual workshop. Alex has been experimenting with alternative materials and techniques for making a su because the traditional bamboo splints and silk thread are nearly impossible to obtain locally. Many aspects of our su construction were guided by Tim Barret’s book Japanese Papermaking, with adaptations for availability of materials. The original plan for the workshop was to use fine nylon thread and the seed-head stems of local grasses instead of the traditional silk thread and bamboo splints. However, recent weather has left the grass plants too green for this purpose, so instead we used the stems of flax plants which Régine and her students had already harvested and dried. These stems were generally about 1.5 to 2.5mm diameter, so this would produce a rather coarse su (in the real thing the bamboo splints are about 0.5-0.7mm diameter), and to provide adequate water flow through the screen, we used a coarser nylon thread for the stitching. On the upside the flax stems were long enough that no joints were required in the su, and the coarser materials made for faster construction. During Alex’s presentation Friday night before the workshop, he showed various sus he has made, including one made from carbon-fibre composite rod, but he said this material, as well as the glass fibre rod suggested in Tim Barret’s book, was not very suitable because the hydrophobic nature of the resin used to make the rods prevented water from passing between the rods to drain the pulp. The weaving stands we used were a simplification of Barret’s, with a single notched board and attached legs:<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-im…

Dredging up Old Junk in My Mind
type: item
date: 2025-08-21T13:26:35Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: Kevin
description: When working on the computer to set up Monotype casting jobs, one thing one must specify is the Normal Wedge (commonly just called “the wedge”). This is a narrow wedge-shaped accessory to the caster which determines how wide the type… Read more ›
encoded: When working on the computer to set up Monotype casting jobs, one thing one must specify is the Normal Wedge (commonly just called “the wedge”). This is a narrow wedge-shaped accessory to the caster which determines how wide the type should be cast, depending on which row of the matrix case the mat is in. Monotype has many wedges, depending on the exact mix of widths required for any particular font, and the wedge is specified as a combination of the desired set-width and the layout of individual widths on the wedge. The latter is specified using a number that almost invariably starts with “S”, by far the most common being the “S5” wedge. I believe the “S” stands for “stopbar”, which is the corresponding accessory for the Monotype Keyboard which provides the widths so space widths can be calculated for filled lines of text. For some unknown-till-today reason, my fingers insist on typing “S9” instead of “S5”, and I was a bit mystified where my mind was coming up with “S9”. Today I finally realized that this dates back to early microcomputer days, before Windows, DOS, or even CP/M, where binary programs were entered as lines of text. One encoding was the so-called Motorola encoding (due to the popularity of the Motorola 6800 processor chip). These lines were each started with an “S” code, with “S9” (end-of-file) being the one that stuck in my head for so long!

Casting Disaster!
type: item
date: 2025-08-18T13:22:55Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance
subject: Kevin
subject: Monotype Composition Caster
description: This week I’ve been trying to wrap up a type casting job on my Monotype Composition Caster, when an internal part on my 12-point Lanston mould broke. I had been casting some 12-point low spaces, and when I got down… Read more ›
encoded: This week I’ve been trying to wrap up a type casting job on my Monotype Composition Caster, when an internal part on my 12-point Lanston mould broke. I had been casting some 12-point low spaces, and when I got down to the em/6 size (only 2 points thick) I found that I had to run the caster very fast, around 165 RPM, to avoid nozzle freezes. The nozzle injects molten type metal into the mould, but if the caster is run too slow for the size of type and metal temperature, metal will remain solidified in the nozzle itself so no type is cast. At this speed, however, the low-quad mechanism was not acting reliably, instead chattering in and out of operation. This mechanism recognizes special matrices in the matcase and forces the mould to keep the upper blade closed so a short space is cast. If the upper blade opens with the main blade, you get a high space, the same height as the shoulders of a piece of type. These are generally undesirable because they can work up while printing and end up printing a small black rectangle instead of the required space. When I changed the caster to cast a font using the same mould I found that the upper mould blade was not opening properly, either causing low quads to be cast, or type with the face perched oddly on a small leg of metal. On disassembling the mould I found that the small latch that holds the upper blade moving in unison with the main blade was broken: <img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-4412" src="https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250817_220405-1024x506.jpg" alt="" width="605" height="299" srcset="https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250817_220405-1024x506.jpg 1024w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250817_220405-300x148.jpg 300w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250817_220405-768x379.jpg 768w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/20250817_220405-1536x758.jpg 1536w, https://papertrail.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/20…

Marshville Heritage Festival, Aug 30th-Sept 1st 2025
type: item
date: 2025-08-18T12:06:12Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: Kevin
subject: Mackenzie Printery and Newspaper Museum
subject: Past Events
description: The Marshville Heritage Society will be holding their annual Marshville Heritage Festival over Labour Day weekend, Saturday August 30th-Monday, September 1st, 2025. The fair runs from 10am-5pm each day and is located on the fairgrounds next to the Wainfleet Arena… Read more ›
encoded: The Marshville Heritage Society will be holding their annual Marshville Heritage Festival over Labour Day weekend, Saturday August 30th-Monday, September 1st, 2025. The fair runs from 10am-5pm each day and is located on the fairgrounds next to the Wainfleet Arena at 31942 Park Street in Wainfleet, Ontario. The Mackenzie Print Group, who own and maintain much of the collection on display at the Mackenzie Printery & Newspaper Museum in Queenston, has a printing shop at the fair where we will be demonstrating printing technology from the early to mid 20th Century. We will be operating a Whitlock newspaper press and casting single lines of type for visitors on a Ludlow Typograph. Visitors will also be able to print their own bookmark on our Adana press as a keepsake of the fair. In addition to the Ludlow casts, we will also have cuts (printing blocks), year-at-a-glance calendars, typecases, and other printing-related items available in trade for donations to our organization to support the museum collection. The fair also has plenty of other attractions, including over 20 heritage buildings relocated to the grounds, a display of old farm equipment and machinery (some in operation), a classic car show (changing every day), demonstrations of various crafts, musical entertainment, activities for the kids, a miniature train ride around the grounds, and plenty of food. Fair admission is $8 for adults, free for children, and there is plenty of free parking available.

New Monotype Control PCB Test
type: item
date: 2025-07-29T20:39:55Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: Caster Computer Control
subject: Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance
subject: Kevin
description: I’ve populated my new PCB with components and after a bit of fiddling, I’ve run a test on it and everything appears to work. The board has a few problems that had to be patched over, including: A missing trace… Read more ›
encoded: I’ve populated my new PCB with components and after a bit of fiddling, I’ve run a test on it and everything appears to work. The board has a few problems that had to be patched over, including: A missing trace (jumper added) Switches damaged during soldering (replaced) Pins bridged by solder (cleaned up) Poor soldering of one IC socket which shifted while soldering (resoldered) Incorrect footprint for MOSFET (installed rotated with extra solder to make connections) Incorrect footprint size for several resistors (removed solder mask to extend pad) K and L signals don’t work because of special pins on processor (solution TBD) Given all that, the board operated properly. The cycle sensor works, none of the channels are crossed or swapped, and it communicates properly through the USB to my laptop. My next job is to solder on the connectors for the pneumatic valves and install the board on the valve bodies. It will need a new flag for the optical cycle sensor because its orientation has changed. This will point out any other errors, in particular swapped channels where, for instance, the laptop wants the N channel on, and the N channel LED lights, but some other air passage actually gets the air. I hope I don’t have any such mistakes because laying out the PCB traces for this part was really tedious. For the problem with the K and L signals, it turns out that the pins I had selected for these signals can only be operated in open-drain mode. Most of the output pins can either force to ground (“0” output) or to the logic “1” voltage (about 3 volts in this case). However, an open-drain output has the choice of forcing to ground for a 0, or letting the pin float to whatever voltage the rest of the circuit tries to put it to. For this to actually generate a 1-level voltage requires a resistor connecting the pin to the +3.3V supply so when the processor pin stops forcing it to ground, it will go to a voltage that indicated a logic 1. I have three ways to work around this: See …

Our New Type-and-rule Caster in Motion
type: item
date: 2025-07-06T14:59:52Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance
subject: Kevin
subject: Monotype Type and Rule Caster
description: I’ve cobbled a motor mount and installed a new drive belt, and our new type-and-rule caster now runs: It still needs work, though. For one thing, the belt either needs tension adjustment or some belt dressing so it doesn’t slip… Read more ›
encoded: I’ve cobbled a motor mount and installed a new drive belt, and our new type-and-rule caster now runs: It still needs work, though. For one thing, the belt either needs tension adjustment or some belt dressing so it doesn’t slip when in the higher geared speeds. Even more important, this machine still needs its pot, pump, and cutter/stacker refitted before it can actually produce anything! This work includes changing the pot to top-crank and making a new temperature controller since the original one has been converted into a museum display.

A PCB for the Monotype Computer Interface
type: item
date: 2025-07-06T14:32:07Z
creator: kpmartin
subject: Caster Computer Control
subject: Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance
subject: Kevin
description: I’ve been slowly plugging away (apparently, for at least 9 years!) at an interface to control my Monotype Composition Caster using a computer. The caster was originally designed to be controlled by a 31-channel punched paper ribbon, which is read… Read more ›
encoded: I’ve been slowly plugging away (apparently, for at least 9 years!) at an interface to control my Monotype Composition Caster using a computer. The caster was originally designed to be controlled by a 31-channel punched paper ribbon, which is read by compressed air. The holes in the ribbon allow the compressed air to enter specific circuits in the caster, which select which matrix to cast, when to start a new line, and other control functions. Blank ribbon is now very hard to come by, and perforating it with an appropriate program requires a whole separate set of equipment: At least one Monotype Keyboard, a collection of keybars and stopbars corresponding to the various fonts one wishes to use, and other accessories. These are all large, heavy, and rust-prone unless stored in a climate-controlled location, so many Monotype owners prefer to avoid physical keyboards altogether. In addition to avoiding all that extra hardware, the computer system is capable of making the caster do things that, though possible using a physical keyboard, would require prohibitively complex calculations on the part of the keyboard operator. There have been several computer interfaces designed through the years, gradually becoming easier to use and to install as designs improved. I’m fussy and find even the latest units somewhat clumsy, having a separate box and a bundle of tubing going to the caster’s reader head, so I’m adding to the fray with my own design. My design uses compact pneumatic valves which allow the entire unit to hang directly on the reader head, requiring no tools to install. It detects the caster cycle using the motion of the same part of the caster that applies the compressed air when reading a physical ribbon. So far, though, my unit is still a prototype, and the electronics are built on a prototyping board, with several bundles of wire connecting it to the unit on the reader head. <img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4395" class="size-large wp-image-4395" src="htt…