I took it as an elective in 12th grade. I think we started with setting type by hand (I can still read a stick of type with no problem, but don’t ask me which letters go where in a California job case) and printing the result. We did personalised note pads adn business cards. Then we went on to linoleum block printing.
As I said, if anyone wants to see one that’s preserved and functional, just come to Haverhill, MA. One of the best museums I’ve been to in a while. I may go back with a friend. If I do, I’ll get some pictures.
Where do you get the pigs to feed it?
(Beautiful machine, by the way.)
There’s literally tons of that metal left lying around. Old print shops often had some they’d gladly get rid of, folks casting bullets for reloading often had sources, and (for a cost) bulk metal supply shops could provide it in ingots.
I had several pig molds, so I’d just have someone with a remelt furnace help me cast new pigs from bulk metal and scrap. If I really wanted to get precise, when casting from reused metal, the big suppliers can still take a metal sample, analyze the relative percentages of lead, tin and antimony, and provide “plus” metal to ad to the mix. Plus metal has a specific, higher component of tin and or antimony to make up for what gets accidental skimmed off in the molten metal cleaning process. I can’t remember whether it was the tin or the antimony, but one of those disproportionately separates from the eutectic alloy and forms a scum on top of the hot metal. Over time, reused metal gets out of balance and need plus set up accordingly.
What do you set with your machine? If you already said it, I missed it.
Also have been fortunate enough to show type lice to any visitors?
Mostly I set for demos, to occasionally help out a couple of local printers doing multipart forms, and as part of the work needed to restore my machines, including my press.
I initially dragged home that Linotype (an Intertype, really, but that’s a long story) as a project piece when I got laid off from Hasbro. It took a long time to find that machine, but once I had it, word got out that I was a guy that was interested in old printing equipment and the floodgates opened. I think I helped re-home four other machines besides my own.
I also ended up with an Kluge 10x15 automatic platen press, a Ludlow line casting machine and several thousand pounds of parts, matrices and odds and ends, including a large paper bag full of asbestos and a tub of hexavalent chromium. Also a big jar of whale oil that I was always nervous about. Stuff would just appear outside my garage door from time to time. It was unstoppable.
Unfortunately, my wife and I decided that we needed to move to warmer, drier climes. It was a tough choice, but I couldn’t imagine moving all that stuff and finding a shop when we weren’t sure where we were going to land long term. I made sure every last piece, including the asbestos, went to a place where it would continue to be used.
And I keep an eye out for commercial industrial space with a 10 foot door just because.
I never had any handset type, thus no type lice. I was known to send people looking for a paper stretcher though. And once wasted a guy’s whole day in a commercial shop I worked at by sending him to get me a fresh box of halftone dots.
Did you buy it from Carney Tyrell?
Every time I see this thread title I assume it’s a Gaelic phrase.
No, not a name I’m familiar with.
Given the Vancouver location of your Intertyoe, I thought you might have known him: he bought and sold printing equipment for years, with a warehouse off Commercial Street in Vancouver. I hung out there as a teenager and later, meeting all sorts of Vancouver letterpress people (almost wrote “types”!) in the 1970s as the technology was being displaced. Anyway, sorry for the hijack, everyone.
Gotcha. I’m not too familiar with the north of the border crowd. Most of my support crew and sources of equipment were in the Seattle area.
How is it pronounced?
nothing like how it is spelt!
“Raymond Luxury-Yacht”.