Month: May 2014

Things will be abuzz for me Saturday

This Saturday I’ll be attending a one-day workshop on beekeeping. Audrey saw a notice posted at KwartzLab about upcoming workshops, and, since I clearly don’t have enough hobbies to keep me busy, I thought I would give it a go.

Adventures in Matrix Copying – Part 3

My last post on this subject showed the initial copper plating almost covering the graphite. An hour or two of further plating produced a nice bright copper layer over the entire surface of the rubber mould. The plating was fairly

Defective Column Pusher Spring Box Fixed

A while ago I made a new spring for the operating lever latch on my Monotype caster, based on specifications passed to me by Bill Welliver. The problem was that when the line length was incorrect, the column pusher was

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Challenge Proof Press Lockup Bar Working

My previous post described my confusion as to how the lockup bar for my Challenge proof press works. As I mentioned in a comment to that post, I found my answer online in US patent number 3288062 which shows how

Challenge Proof Press Lockup Bar

One part of my Challenge MA15 proof press that I cannot figure out is the lockup bar, used as a quick way of clamping the type in position on the bed. The bar has a locking lever which turns an

A Trip to West Virginia

The display matrices I had purchased in the recent Anderson auction were heavy enough that it would have cost several hundred dollars to ship them. Instead I took a couple of days to drive to Terra Alta, WV, to visit

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Adventures in Matrix Copying – Part 2

My first attempt at making a rubber mould of a Lanston display matrix ended up with a fatal flaw due to an air bubble. I made a second attempt, hoping to avoid repeating this flaw. The instructions for the casting

It’s Not Dead Yet!

This post was written on January 31st, but for some reason I forgot to actually publish it! This year’s mulberry branch harvest has been sitting in a bucket of water to keep it fresh, but it has also been sitting

Adventures in Matrix Copying

One thing I have wanted to try for a while was the duplication of a Lanston Monotype display matrix. It it probably not worth the trouble to copy an entire font of mats, but it would be useful for replacing

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