While trying to remelt some old composition rollers recently, I found that some of the material wouldn’t melt. Neither higher temperatures nor additional water helped. All I ended up with was a lumpy soup, from which I strained the lumps…
Category: Equipment
Monotype Computer Control: Diagnosing Air Flow Problems
One observation I have made while testing out my Monotype composition caster computer interface is that not all its ports deliver the same amount of air flow. On some, the air pin in the caster lifts and drops crisply in…
Posted in Caster Computer Control, Kevin
Should the keta stretch the su?
After some thought, I would say “probably not.” I have a su (bamboo screen for Japanese-style paper making) for which I made a keta (combined support frame and deckle) many years ago. I’ve taken the occasional attempt at making paper…
Monotype Computer Control: A Long Overdue Update
My last post about this project was over a year ago, wherein I mentioned that I had purchased the aluminum stock to make the main parts of the valve unit. A lot has happened since then, to the point where…
Posted in American Typecasting Fellowship, Caster Computer Control, Kevin, Other people Tagged with: Bill Welliver, Krzysztof Słychań
A Little Printing Job
Last October I was printing some “Save the Date” cards for a customer, and decided to take a video of the work. It only too me 8 months to edit the clips into a single video, but, after much delay,…
Now I know…
…why the Monotype manuals say not to raise or lower the pot unless it is molten. They never explained why this could cause any problems, and the pump piston linkage is jointed enough to follow the pot up and down…
The K-W Maker Expo, Saturday September 19th
The local maker club, Kwartzlab, is spearheading a big event coming up on Saturday, September 19th, 2015 called Maker Expo. This free event centered around Kitchener City Hall will feature all kinds of people and organizations who make things, about…
It’s Getting Real
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…
An Interem Solution to the Pneumatic Valves Problems
This week I’ve been occupied with (finally) putting away all the display mats I bought last year at the Anderson and Skyline matrix auctions. They have been cluttering up the shop since last summer with their variety of packaging. I…
Posted in Caster Computer Control, Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Matrix Making, Monotype Composition Caster Tagged with: Jim Rimmer
Matrix Making: Handling Ink Gain
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…