the Papertrail – Page 50

Slotwall display unit for sale

Posted on 2013/06/07 by kpmartin Posted in Sold — 2 Comments ↓

We have a column finished with slotwall along with some slotwall accessories for sale.

We formerly used this to display books and other literature. It is approximately 48 inches wide, 12 inches deep, and 37 inches tall, and was made to be mounted on a low platform and so has no top (the top was above eye level). The slotwall panels are held to the frame with wood screws neatly trimmed with plated finishing washers. The panels are a light wood finish, perhaps faux maple.

We are also selling clear acrylic hangers to fit the slots. There are 8 ledges/shelves, 4 narrow J-hooks and 8 wide J-hooks; the wide ones are 30cm (a little under 24″) long, and you can see the relative size of the other accessories in the photos.

We are asking $75 for the lot, and are willing to deliver for free within the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge area (ground level only).

Wool blanket couches for sale

Posted on 2013/06/07 by kpmartin Posted in Sold — 1 Comment ↓

We were doing some cleaning up and ran across a stack of wool blanket couches which we used for papermaking before we were even involved with the Papertrail. We don’t really have a use for them any more so we’re offering them for sale.

They are 10×12″ (suitable for 8½×11″ paper) and there are 36 of them, of which 26 have serged edges to prevent fraying. The stack is about 5″ thick when you put them all together.

We’re asking $20 for them, plus shipping. Since these were never really part of the business this is a personal sale and so no sales taxes apply. However, if you want you can combine them with an order for other items from our store to spread the shipping cost over more stuff.

Finished Washi from 2010

Posted on 2013/06/05 by kpmartin Posted in Hand Papermaking, Kevin, Yahoo Papermaking Gatherings — No Comments ↓

A while ago I posted a video of me making washi while we were in Prince Edward Island but I have yet to post anything about the results. Unfortunately we did not take any video of pressing the post, separating the sheets, or drying them.

The sheets would not separate cleanly so most of them were removed as double or triple thickness sheets, and they were applied to the windows of the guest house to dry. Once dry I had problems with some of them sticking, so there was more damage peeling them off the glass. However, I did get a few good sheets, and we have about 15 left now. Being dried on glass, one surface has a sheen to it which does not show in the photos.

Seven thinner sheets, eight thicker ones, and some torn bits.

This is one of the better sheets, held up to the light. This one is probably still two sheets laminated together

This is one of the sheets that is (mostly) a single thickness, again held up to the light. It is fine like tissue paper, but there are three or four darker patches which are thicker because patches of the next sheet tore off onto this sheet.

This is one of the more typical thicker sheets. It is probably three or more of my original formed sheets laminated together, with uneven thickness resulting from patches of the laminated sheets tearing off and staying attached to other sheets in the batch.

There is at least one mistake in the sheetforming that shows in all of these photos: A dark wavy line across one long edge of the sheet which seems to be related to the way I throw off (or fail to throw off) and refill my sugeta for each scoop of pulp that forms one sheet. It would also be nice if the pulp were better beaten so fewer coarse fibre clumps showed up, but that is more of a stylistic thing. My delamination problems might also be due to my sheetforming, perhaps because the throw-off/refill is taking too long so the individual layers are not bonded within the sheet. Finally, I blame sticking to the glass on the fact that I am using a synthetic formation aid (polyethylene oxide or PEO) which remains active and can act like a glue after the pressing is done; natural formation aids including the traditional neri break down substantially by the time the sheets are peeled of the post and dried.

This sample of a single-thickness sheet showing how it takes fountain pen lines very well, with crisp edges and little skipping. The line at the left was drawn of the back of the sheet, showing how much show-through there is.

Monotype pump head disassembly

Posted on 2013/06/04 by kpmartin Posted in Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

The third branch of my Monotype pump refitting is the disassembly and cleaning of most of the parts of the pump head. I have started cleaning the parts and have some of the simpler pieces cleaned and ready to re-assemble.

All ready to start cleaning: A box of dirty parts, water-based paint stripper, steel wool, mineral spirits, and for tough spots, acetone, along with a variety of scrapers and brushes.

Most of the parts with simple shapes are cleaned, along with one of the odd-shaped castings.

This still leaves one more odd-shaped casting, a couple of other small parts, and three long springs to clean. I will try to find some sort of trough for soaking the springs in the paint remover, after which there will be plenty of messy brushing to do!

Monotype Pump Latch R&R—A special tool avoided

Posted on 2013/06/01 by kpmartin Posted in Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

In order to repair two threaded holes in the Monotype caster pump latch, I thought I would have to make an extension for my drill bit because the holes to be drilled were so close to a side arm on the part. However, it turned out that I could place the required drill bit (#29 if I recall) in the collet chuck of the flex shaft handpiece of my Dremel. It is a bit of a cheat since #29 is larger that the 1/8″ size the collet is made for but I managed to get the bit held properly anyway. It is also slow work because the Dremel motor easily gets bogged down. Essentially I have to turn it on to a speed that is far too high for a drill bit of that size, then apply enough drilling pressure by hand to slow the motor down to the right speed but not stall it completely. On the other hand the long handpiece makes it easy to visually keep the hole sufficiently square to the surface.

I will not be threading the holes to their original specifications, which is 5/32-36 with what I believe to be a 55° thread angle as I am willing to neither make nor purchase a custom-sized tap for the purpose. Instead I will be using a modern #8-36 tap, whose major diameter 0.164″ is slightly greater than 5/32 (0.156″) and whose thread angle is 60°. The original screws will screw into the new holes, but will have a weakened hold, so I may use #8-36 screws as well, with their heads modified to match the countersink depth.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the drilling process:

Cleaning the Thompson Ink Fountain Completed

Posted on 2013/05/31 by kpmartin Posted in Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Thompson British Platen Press — No Comments ↓

After getting all the parts cleaned on the ink fountain for my Thompson press, I painted the cover and the main casting. I was going to use semi-gloss black, but the flat black I tried seemed to have enough of a sheen to match the rest of the press, especially once it starts to get oily from handling. Then came time for reassembly, where I ran into a couple of glitches.

The fountain painted and partly assembled: the end plates are installed along with about half the ink adjusting screws.

At this point I found that the ink adjusting screws were still not easy to turn. Evidently their holes were still clogged with a combination of dried ink and new paint. A tap could be used to clean the threads, but the thread was a 5/16BSF22, and old British thread size that you hardly ever see any more, especially outside of Britain! I spent a while on the web looking for such a tap at a reasonable price with no luck. Then I decided to try a possibly simpler task: find a 5/16BSF22 bolt and gash the end with my Dremel to form a crude tap that might not cut metal but would clean the threads. I went to the local hardware supplier’s catalog, found the page for BSF bolts, and right at the bottom they also listed BSF taps (I had already checked the tap & die section of their catalog and found nothing). So Spaenaur to the rescue: they had it in stock and it was only about $15.

Cleaning out the threaded holes with a tap. I was too lazy to get my proper tap wrench but there was little torque required so the wrench worked fine.

After cleaning the holes with the tap and putting in the adjusting screws, the gunk cleaned from the holes shows on the table.

Now that the adjusting screws were running freely, I re-installed the doctor blade. That left the cover to reinstall. It is held on by a short pivot pin on each end which is held to the cover by a cotter pin, and rotates freely in a matching hole in the main casting. But again the holes were slightly clogged with paint, and after fighting to put the pin in I had scratched it up enough with the pliers that it would not go in fully. Furthermore I determined that the holes for the cotter pin had been drilled a bit off-center and different on the two ends of the cover, so each pivot pin had to be re-installed in the same end of the cover it came from, and had to be rotated to the correct orientation to be able to insert the cotter pins. I filed down the burrs I had made on one pivot pin, finished assembling everything, and re-installed the fountain on the press.

The cleaned fountain back in place on the press.

The red roller rocks back and forth in time with the press action. Each time it moves to the right it picks up a strip of ink from the fountain roller. The thickness of the ink layer is determined by the adjusting screws on the fountain, and the width is determined by an adjusting lever at the far end of the fountain.

Early gardening

Posted on 2013/05/30 by kpmartin Posted in Fibre harvesting, Gardening, Lily — No Comments ↓

My rhubarb is once again growing amazingly large. This plant has a long history. I first met it in the back yard of the house I grew up in. When it was there it benefited from annual feeding in the form of manure from an abandoned stable on our cottage property. When I eventually bought my own house in Waterloo, I dug up a football-sized hunk of the root and planted at my new house, where it continued to thrive. Three years ago, when we moved to New Dundee, I dug up a bunch of pieces of the root and replanted them in New Dundee, and as you can see in the photo they continue to thrive despite having grown in three rather different soil types.

Watch out, Lily! It’s going to eat you!

In front of Lily in the photo is my mulberry plant. The main trunk is now about 1′ tall since I cut half of it off this spring. By then the buds were already opening, and this plant has seemed so vigourous that I just planted the cut-off part in the ground and plan to keep it well-watered and pruned during the summer. This was done a couple of weeks ago and the new foliage, although a bit smaller than on the parent plant, is still growing. Time will tell whether it will survive but I think if it lasts the year it should be fine.

This is the piece cut off the trunk of my original plant, rather crudely planted. We’ve had plenty of rain lately and so far, so good.

Pump Latch Mechanism R&R

Posted on 2013/05/29 by kpmartin Posted in Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

Although most of my work on the pump on my Monotype caster seems to be on making a new extended-stroke piston rod, I am also working on cleaning and refurbishing the pump latch mechanism that Rich Hopkins sent me.

After disassembling and cleaning the parts I found that there were two broken-off screw stubs in one of the parts. The shape of the part and small size of the screws made removal of the broken stubs almost impossible. Even trying to drill them out failed because the drill bit would wander off the broken screw into the comparatively soft cast iron part it was embedded in.

I eventually found that I could use a 4″ long endmill to reach the screws and mill them out. Unlike a drill, an endmill has a flat face and does not tend to drift so much from hardness variations. Unfortunately the mill was also 3/8″ diameter and so left large holes to be filled.

This is the latch part with the broken screws milled out. Note the arm close to the holes which requires long-reach tools.

This was the milling setup for removing the broken screws. Note the extra-long endmill which was able to reach the required location.

I made some steel plugs the required diameter to fill the holes and brazed them in place, milled off the excess metal and finally finished the surface with a file.

These are the plugs, coated with flux and ready to install. A corner was taken off each plug so they would not interfere with the large hole visible at the bottom of the photo.

The plugs have been placed in their holes and are ready for brazing.

The plugs have been brazed in place. The photo is a bit overexposed due to glare so the brazing looks whiter than it really is.

The rough removal of excess brazing and plugs was done with the same mill setup as for milling out the broken screws. The final cleanup was done with the mill head turned horizontal so it could reach right into the ledge.

This is the mill setup for final cleanup of the brazing and plugs.

The face has been cleaned up with the mill and some final finishing with a flat file.

The next steps will be to mark the proper hole locations, drill and tap them. I will have to make an extension for the drill bit and another for the tap wrench to get this done.

Monotype Pump: Lathe work completed

Posted on 2013/05/28 by kpmartin Posted in Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

In my last post about the Monotype piston rod I am making to provide a lengthened pump stroke about the only work completed was the ends of the piece.

Since that time I have proceeded through the following stages:

What will become the top end of the rod is complete, and I have started roughing out the stem.

The workpiece has been reversed end-for-end on the lathe, and the remaining metal on the stem has been roughed out. At this point I had to quit for the night because the workpiece was so hot.

The stem has been turned to its final dimensions and the part removed from the lathe.

The next step is to drill and tap the top hole for the handle to screw into. The drilling will be done on the drill press and tapping by hand. If there is any of the nub left after drilling and tapping I will use a countersink on the drill press to remove it.

Rural Routes Studio Tour Auction

Posted on 2013/05/25 by kpmartin Posted in Audrey, Bookbinding, Kevin, Past Events, Rural Routes Studio Tour Group — 1 Comment ↓

To help fund our studio tour this year, our tour group is holding monthly online auctions of items donated by the member artists. Our turn to donate an item comes up for the July auction, so we have one month to get something ready.

We are planning on making a notebook using our handmade paper and a plain leather outer cover and coarse exposed stitching. The leather will form a limp cover which can be closed around the pages to keep the book closed. The paper is quite thin: the book will have 96 pages and the textblock will only be about ¾” thick. We haven’t decided what will hold the book closed (clasp, thong, etc) but we will be trying for a somewhat rustic effect.

So far all we have actually done is selected the leather and folded the sheets and gathered them into the booklets that will ultimately be stitched in place. We still have to remember to see how the colours work in daylight because so far we have only looked at them under the fluorescent lights in our shop.

The bundle of folded sheets ready for punching and sewing, sitting on top of the leather that will be used for the cover. Both the paper and the leather are off-white with a hint of green in them.