For your printing pleasure this month we bring you the hypnotic little Border No. F-542 in 12 point. This is a Linotype design, shown in their monster 1939 specimen book and possibly earlier. Our Thompson Type Casters are unique among all casters in that they can make foundry type from linecaster matrices—Linotype, Intertype, and Ludlow. And since these are made to be ganged together, this can also be done on the Thompson (up to a max set width of about 54 points). This offers the singular advantage of allowing multiple elements to be cast on a single body, which facilitates quick and simple border composition. In the case of this two-element design, most of the font is furnished as a triple element on 36pt set, plus of course some of the single element and corners on stand-alone em-body.
Also new this month: by popular demand we have added Assorted Quads & Spacing in 12 point to our product line. Otherwise June was a busy restock month, with new supplies cast of Sans Serif Light 36pt with Deco Alternates; Border No. F-1022, and Collections No. 48 & 49, our two very popular sets of linecast decorative dashes.
Typecasting, though, is not an easy business. Keeping our 90-year old machinery up and running is always a challenge and calamities do happen. We had undertaken a commission for a substantial casting of Cloister Old Style in 14 point—and halfway though casting 110 fonts a matrix failed. We had no backup mat font and that left us flat S.O.L. The project was abandoned and 4½ days of carefully cast type dumped into the hellbox.
One of the cam levers on the Thompson includes a small segment of a bevel gear at one end; this part translates the arcing motion of another cam lever into reciprocating motion of the Type Body Piece, which ejects the newly-cast type from the mold. This gear segment has but two teeth and unfortunately is the weakest point in a mechanism which has no forgiveness. More than one of these parts has broken on us, the teeth sheared right off. A quest for a machine shop capable of repairing this part got us a string of refusals, but we finally landed at a high-tech engineering firm in Phoenix who said they could re-create the part. Reverse-engineering it was estimated at 100 hours (@$250.00/hr), and then we could talk about fabrication. (Long, expressionless pause.) OK, so much for that idea. When we break the last part, Skyline is toast.
July brings the Amalgamated Printers Assn Wayzgoose in California, and then I’m headed north for a visit to Seattle’s vibrant community letterpress studio Partners in Print on July 30. Come on by either, I love to meet our customers in person.