Jim King R.I.P. - Photo Memorial - Help Needed

[Dave Hughes]

I was contacted recently by Amanda Heaton who had the unenviable task of informing me that her father, Forum member Jim King, had passed away on September 13 this year.

Jim had worked in the print industry for most of his life. During his final months he was virtually housebound and spent many an hour perusing this Forum. His daughter typed his posts into the Forum as his hands were not up to the task.

Amanda has sent me some photographs that she thought might be of interest to members of the Forum. I thought it would be a good idea to put them on permanent pages in the main body of the site as a tribute or memorial to Jim.

Unfortunately she has little or no details on the subject matter of the pics, so I thought I would post them on here first to see if Forum members could provide further information.

Photo 1



A Neotype stand at a trade exhibition. I never had any experience of the Neotype machine. The picture shows three linecasters and a strip caster. Looking at the technology, I would say early 1970s. Is it at London's Olympia or Earl's Court, or perhaps abroad somewhere. The windows look like an old Victorian building. Anyone know much about the Neotypes?

Photo 2




A linecaster in a packing crate. Looks like an early one. Doesn't look brand new, so not being delivered from the factory. A second-hand machine being shipped off somewhere?

Photo 3 & 4





A Russian H140 linecaster at Pravda and an instruction manual from an earlier model?

[Keri Szafir]

If Neotype is what I think (a Soviet copy of Linotype / Intertype), then it's pretty popular in former Eastern Bloc countries. The Book Art Museum in Poland has one (model N114 if I remember correctly) and an operating manual as well.
They were made in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). The factory also made lead&rule casters and headliners, and possibly type casters for old-school founders' mats. There was even some work to copy the Monotype system, but the precision required to make the casting machine/mould was so high that the Russians couldn't do it. Rumour has it that they managed to make a keyboard (typesetting machine), but I've yet to know the details.
See e.g. https://www.flickr.com/photos/typeoff/6049778679/

[Mechanic]

They are definitely Russian machines. Note the knife block. It would have been late fifties as the later Russian machines had the Elektron straight line assembler delivery. like the machine in Dave's photo. The other photo is an early high based Linotype, which has been damaged. the base of the keyboard is broken and the first elevator is broken and in the tray in front of the photo I have no idea what the large pulley is that appears to be attached to the intermediate shaft. 

[R Kenworthy]

Re the machine in the packing case. My old model 4 had a pulley on the intermediate shaft and a belt to a floor mounted DC motor with a gear box reduction. This was swapped for a single phase motor worked OK for years. I was given to understand that it had originally been driven from an overhead steam driven shaft.

[Mechanic]

  R Kenworthy wrote

Re the machine in the packing case. My old model 4 had a pulley on the intermediate shaft and a belt to a floor mounted DC motor with a gear box reduction. This was swapped for a single phase motor worked OK for years. I was given to understand that it had originally been driven from an overhead steam driven shaft.

Now that is interesting. Normally the clutch wheel drives the intermediate shaft. Machines I've seen driven remotely had a wider clutch pulley. Later machines that used floor mounted motors had a V belt drive as part of the clutch pulley.