I actually went out and purchased some aluminum stock for making the computer control valve for my Monotype.
That’s a piece of 1″ aluminum square bar which will make the mouthpiece that fits against the air holes in the caster’s paper tower, and some ¼″ thick aluminum plate which the valves will mount on and which will have a labyrinth of grooves to direct the compressed air from the correct valve port to the correct port on the caster.
Inflation once again rears its ugly head, forcing us to increase some of our product prices. I think many of our suppliers’ prices were set by the supply chain before the price of oil fell through the floor, so the price increases represent shipping costs and the fact that many of the affected products are derived from petroleum as a primary ingredient. There also seems to be a continuing trend of corporate consolidation and increased costs for processing small orders like ours.
The new prices are effective immediately, and are in our recently updated catalogue and New Products List (and their French counterparts).
The products affected are: Unbleached Abaca Pulp, Formation Aid, Coagulant (see below), Sizing, and Bone Folders.
We are also phasing out our liquid Coagulant, replacing it with a granular product that has similar properties. The new product is easier to store, has a longer storage life, and is cleaner to handle. We will continue to sell our remaining liquid Coagulant until we run out, and it will remain priced based on what it cost us, so it looks like a real bargain compared to its replacement, but we can assure you that if we continued to sell the liquid Coagulant, its new price would be comparable to that of the new powder product.
We are also planning on selling a granular retention agent to replace the Retention Agent and Scavenger products that we’ve been out of stock on for so long, but we expect that once we get these they will have substantially increased prices similar to those for the products mentioned above.
…and not the ones RIM makes, either!
This year, the blackberry plants growing wild in our yard along the fences and stream valley seem to have a bumper crop of berries on them. I suspect the plentiful June precipitation had something to do with it.
So far I had just been nibbling on the occasional berry, but we decided to actually go out and pick them properly today.
We came back with about 5 cups of berries (not counting the ones eaten by the pickers), which really surprised me. One particular section between a fence and a building itself produced almost two cups of berries. I think the fence and building together provided shelter from the wind so ripe berries were not knocked off the plant, and also provided some protection from birds and animals.
Many of the plants still have lots of immature berries as well, so this good crop should continue for a while.
We’ve had this calligraphy set in our store for years, but we’ve never had any success using it. The problem we run into is that the ink does not wet the nibs and flow out properly; instead whatever ink gets on the nib just beads up in drops. This seems to happen no matter what ink we’ve tried (although I must admit this is definitely not a wide range, and in particular does not include oil-based inks).
The set includes several pen nibs, a handle, brush, pencil, black ink, and three colours of watercolour paint. Along with these tools and materials, there is a book of projects and a separate book on technique. The latter mentions the problem of the ink not wetting the nibs and suggests that new nibs must be thoroughly cleaned with soap. We’ve tried this to no avail as well. I have to wonder if these particular nibs are coated with some sort of silicone, which would be resistant to soap.
One calligraphy book I recently leafed through at the local library suggested scorching new nibs in a candle flame to remove their water-repellant coating. This struck me as a poor solution, since too much heat would cause the steel in the nibs to lose their temper and thus their springiness.
Tools and supplies included in the set
The four nibs (l-r): #5 roundhand, #3 roundhand, 8mm poster, and copperplate. The #5 has an ink reservoir clipped onto it which can be transferred to the other roundhand nib.
The nibs appear to be gold-plated, but rust on the shank of the #5 roundhand nib belies that fact that the underlying metal is plain (not stainless) steel. I don’t want to try the candle trick, but I would really like to get these working properly. I have a few solvents I can try to remove the coating, but if any of you have specific suggestions as to what to try…
I found one YouTube video that also suggests the scorching technique, but also rubbing alcohol, stabbing the nib into a raw potato repeatedly, and cleaning with toothpaste and an old toothbrush. Any of these might be viable on a copperplate nib, but the roundhand and poster nibs have internal surfaces that pretty much preclude any sort of mechanical cleaning. There is a big fat fingerprint clearly visible on the poster nib so clearly cleaning is a regular chore!
Earlier this week I was picking some wild blackberries that grow along the fences and creek bed at the rear of our property when I ran across this tiny bird nest built on a tussock of tall grass. I only got a quick glance of the bird, tiny, brown, with huge terrified eyes, as it would run off into the nearby underbrush. There was no way of getting a picture of the bird without disturbing nearby vegetation and further exposing the nest. But I did get a photo of the nest and three eggs, along with a nickel for a size reference:
Sorry it is so blurry… Anyone have any idea what kind of bird owns this nest?
Now that I have the font display matrices in boxes, I have an assortment of sorts matrices to sort out and store. In addition to the sorts I also had a few cardboard boxes of unfiled small caps, odd sizes, and swash letters belonging to various regular fonts. Last week I bought another dozen Plano 3448 boxes for storing these, and managed to get most of these cleared up.
Many of these actually belonged with particular fonts, so I filed these with their appropriate font mats, and put surplus mats aside for later dispersal. The rest required flipping through the specimen books to find how they were classified and numbered there, because I wanted by boxing scheme to at least vaguely resemble the specimen book scheme. Most parentheses and brackets belonged with particular fonts, and the ones that didn’t (or, at least, the ones of those I have) turned out to be numbered as ornaments and are thus also listed in the ornaments specimens. Braces have their own unique numbering and got their own box. Symbols were placed in several boxes depending on which family (mathematical, commercial, etc) they belonged with. Some of the mats belong with particular fonts that I don’t have; I’ll be keeping these because I may eventually get the matching font. There are still several mats I have which do not appear in the specimen books. I will probably cast and proof them to identify what family they belong with before filing them away. Several of them are capital Greek letters for mathematical use (Σ and Π mainly) which are not part of the math symbols so perhaps they are just regular letters from a Greek font.
After all this I’ve used up the twelve boxes I bought last week, and still need a few more. They aren’t actually listed any more at the Sail web site so I suspect they may be discontinued, which means I’ll have to scrounge around in all the branches of the store I happen to drive by if I want more. I’ll be in Ottawa next week and can check out the store there, and on the way home the Oshawa store is just off the highway. Next time I got up to the Book Arts Guild of Richmond Hill, I can try the Vaughan branch too. I can corner the market in these boxes! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
Last Sunday (the 21st, that is) we spent the afternoon in Hamilton at the Mini Maker Faire, hosted by the Hamilton Museum of Steam & Technology. The site is a former Victorian-era steam-powered plant for pumping municipal water from Lake Ontario (filtered only by a sand bed) into piping to replace all the local wells which were often sources of disease. The plant used two large (about 3 stories tall) walking beam steam engines to pump the water to an open reservoir on a hill. The engines and pumphouse have been restored, and one of the engines runs (alas, powered by an electric motor, not steam!).
One the same site, the Golden Horseshoe Live Steamers have several loops of small-gauge track and offered rides on three trains. The rails are 7¼″ and 4¾″ gauge so you ride the two-car trains by sitting astride the tops of the cars. The smaller train was powered by a tiny coal-fired steam engine and I was quite amazed that such a small engine could pull the train!
Loading a few more chips of coal into the firebox. The train in the foreground is powered by a hidden gasoline engine, perhaps stolen off a weed trimmer.
The Faire itself featured a large display from the Hamilton Model Engineering Club along with displays from various maker clubs (including our local KwartzLab), robotics clubs, 3D printer manufacturers, and sundry other crafters. Outside, there were robot competitions and air-powered foam rocket launching.
The weather was great, nice and sunny with a breeze blowing in off the lake to keep things comfortable. Although Lily was a bit bored by some of the displays, she loved the train rides and I think we all had a great time.
I was planning on stopping on the way there at the Cambridge Sail store to get more plastic cases for storing smaller quantities of display matrices that five full fonts. The boxes I buy are Plano 3448-60 six-compartment translucent boxes. These will hold one font of mats, which is useful for faces that include additional sizes (typically 12, 16, or an alternative 18#2 size), or for which I have a set of small caps (room for two sizes of these), fractions or alternative figures (room for six sizes), or swash alternates (depending how may there are in a font). They can also be used for storing non-font-related mats like symbols, arrows, etc. I had purchased these cases several times at this store, and this was the first time that I did not check stock ahead of time on their web site. As luck would have it they were all out! A very helpful clerk called the Burlington branch, which was also along our route, and verified that they indeed had some in stock, so when we got there I bought a dozen (then it was on to the Maker Faire).
I just noticed that, once I approve someone for comments, I receive absolutely no notification of any new comments they place. So if you’ve been commenting on posts here and wondering about my silence, it’s because I didn’t realize there was anything to read!
I’ll have to rummage around to see if WordPress has a setting to notify me of all comments, not just ones awaiting approval (i.e. from unapproved users)
I have my display font matrices in proper boxes now, but I still have mats for symbols, arrows, braces and brackets, ornaments, borders, etc. to sort out and inventory.
Most of these were in the loose tray at top left. Several more were acquired at the ATF conference last summer.
The ones in the box at upper left are not Lanston display mats. Some are English display mats and others are odd ones that require something like a Thompson caster to use.
Lower left is arrows of all types, middle and lower right are suspected of belonging as part of regular fonts. The ones across the top are symbols of various sorts, and border corners are near upper right. Not shown are several boxes of fractions, which belong with particular faces.
The numbering on some of these is hard to read, and even when legible Lanston’s numbering system was far from my idea of a systemic numbering system. What I will do with these is consider each mat, find it in the specimen books, and determine from there how I should classify it (ornament, regular font, symbol, etc.) which will (hopefully) in turn allow me to decide how to distribute them in boxes. While I’m at it I’ll make an inventory of them and cull out duplicates. As with the duplicate font mats I’ll hang on to them until I’m sure the one I am keeping casts properly.
I finally have all my Monotype display matrices, at least the ones I plan on keeping in the long run, in uniform storage boxes.
Needless to say, the table was sagging a bit under the weight!
Altogether I have 82 faces in 82 boxes, each box containing between 1 and 5 sizes. In addition I have a few extra matrices in smaller box styles, including extra sizes of some faces, swash variants, small caps, alternative figures, and fractions. I still have to place in proper boxes matrices for symbols, ornaments, arrows, borders, and other such items not tied to a particular face.
In the process of boxing these I found a few duplicates which I plan on selling eventually. Before I do that, though, I want to cast the “keeper” set of each font to ensure that it is complete and undamaged. Some of the duplicate sets are missing a matrix or two, so I may try to copy the keepers since I expect that a complete font of mats will sell better.
I suspect that some of the duplicates are because my computer listing of fonts was out of date when I was purchasing. Other are because, during the three-stage Skyline auction last year, I forgot to account for the purchases already made in one stage when bidding on the next stage (which included unsold lots from the earlier stages).
I also now have a collection of the various containers all these mats came in. There is someone nearby who might want the Lanston boxes (at least, the ones that haven’t turned to dust). I’ll keep the neat little boxes from the Anderson auction mats as each one holds one font of mats in a nice compact space; they’ll be handy for packing my surplus mats. Some of the mats from the Skyline auction came in these strange custom metal trays, which just hold the mats in one long row and have no cover. I’m not sure what I’ll do with those trays. Maybe Sky wants them back…
The nice little cabinet I was using for storing display mats does not have room for all these boxes, so I will have to replace it with some other type of shelving. I might have to make something custom for this as it seems that is the only way to optimize the use of the storage space.
The next thing I should do with these, after double-checking that all the duplicate sets are indeed duplicates, is to ensure that my computer database is up to date. One thing I want to do with this is separate out my actual holdings from the stock information, the latter including the correspondence between face numbers and names, standard font contents, and line standard, most of which can be obtained from the specimen books.