26 Soldiers of Lead

[Dave Hughes]

The Monotype float at the 1928 Lord Mayor's show had an operational Monotype keyboard and caster on it!

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'Twenty-Six Soldiers of Lead' parading through London as part of the 1928 Lord Mayor's Show with the Monotype float that carried two ancient typeframes and Monotype keyboard & caster, apparently in operation. The 'Soldiers of Lead' were boy scouts who rather than carrying guns on their shoulders, carried an enormous scale enlargement of that far more potent weapon — a printer's type! The float was emblazoned with words attributed to Benjamin Franklin: "With Twenty-Six Soldiers of Lead I will Conquer the World"... . . . . . . #ThrowbackThursday #tbt #Monotype #letterpress #twentysixsoldiersoflead @bymonotype

A post shared by Creative Letterpress Printing (@typoretum) on Mar 28, 2018 at 11:01pm PDT

[John Cornelisse]

How could a composition caster function on this platform ? 10-16 Amp's of electicity, another compressor... but compressed air you need for the keyboard too...

[Dave Hughes]

I thought it was unlikely John!

Note that the caption says "apparently" in operation.

[Keri Szafir]

...and Gill Sans was freshly out too.

I also wonder about the compressor. The melting pot can be gas-heated (I'm not sure if the tall part of the caster is a piston spring or the pot's chimney though) using an external canister. The rotation for the caster... 1hp / 0.75kW motor was enough for that.