Foundry/Plates Archives - Metal Type

German Museums

Dave Hughes — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 17:56:13 +0000

Thanks to Teo Pelho, from Finland, for sending in these pictures, taken at the Deutsches Museum, Munich and the Gutenberg Museum, Mainz, Germany.

I have very little information about the pictures, so if you think you can “flesh out” any of the captions, please post your suggestions here. Please refer to the pictures by number.

1 – A Brehmer book stitching machine

2 – A Simplex one-man typesetting machine.

3 – A Monoline typesetting machine.

4 – Rogers Typograph

5 – Intertype Fotosetter.

6 – Printing Press.

7 – A large press,

8 – A ruling machine.

9 – An early press.

10 – Another early press.

Another Press

12 – Web newspaper press.

13 – Early Linotype.

14 – Detail of the Linotype.

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Stempel Type Foundry

Dave Hughes — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:55:47 +0000

Thanks to Thomas Gravemaker for sending in these photographs that he took on a visit to the Stempel Type Foundry, Darmstadt, Germany.

Thomas said: “The photographs were taken on my visit to the Stempel Foundry in Darmstadt, Germany. They’re housed in the Haus fur Industriekultur, where they have a fantastic working museum, presses, type, A complete range of Linotypes (from the earliest ones to the latest versions) and some Monotype material as well.

Stempel is run by M. Gerstenberg, who still supplies the world with brand new foundry type, using the matrices of Stempel, Deberny & Peignot, Nebiolo and Haas.

An overview of the type foundry.

Mr Gerstenberg at work in the foundry.

Matrices.

Completed foundry type.

Double-headed casters.

Kulco Caster.

Presses in the Industry Museum.

Monotype Casting.

More Monotype casting.

Older Linotypes in the museum.

More recent Linotypes.

Monotype fan? Don’t miss the Monotype Chat section of the Metal Type Forum.

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Northcliffe House, 1980s

Dave Hughes — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 14:49:46 +0000

Another batch of pictures, sent in by Ken Flemington. Says Ken: “They were taken at Northcliffe House, home of the Daily Mail, where we were printing the Sunday People. They were taken in June 1986 and I am in one of the photos. I will also include one of me using a Polymer platemaking machine which replaced hot metal at Holborn for the short period before closure in 1988.

“I hope the readers enjoy these photos as much as I enjoy the other photos of printers and printing on your excellent site. Sadly this is all I have.”

Malcom Watts preparing the moulds for Sunday People June 1986 at Nortcliffe House.

Malcom Watts preparing the moulds for Sunday People June 1986 at Nortcliffe House matrix dryer in background.

M.A.N. casting machine. These were not as effective as the Autoplate Autocasters used at Holborn but needed less men.

MAN casting machine with casting box open. Plate is cast on the curved ribbed portion Northcliffe House June 1986.

Ken Flemington (that’s me) setting the mould ready to cast plates. MAN caster June 1986.

Newly cast plate being ejected from MAN caster by hydraulic ram June 1986.

MAN caster, broken mould apparently almost impossible to happen, but I managed it! June 1986 Northcliffe house Sunday People.

Checking the finished plates, old plates stacked on trolleys ready for remelting.

Marking the page number on the plate for easy recognition in the machine room.

Old plate being put back in metal pot for melting down and reuse June 1986.

Putting plate on conveyor for transport to machine room.

Sunday Mirror printing Northcliffe House June 1986.

Off topic, but one of Ken Flemington (me) on polymer Platemaker. This process replaced hot metal until Holborn closed down in 1988. Many stereotypers were made redundant at this time.

I don’t think this site would be quite so popular if it was called “Polymer Type”! – Ed.

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Daily Mirror Foundry, 1980s

Dave Hughes — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 12:25:42 +0000

Many thanks to Ken Flemington for getting in touch with the site and sending these photographs in. Some pictures include Ken’s son!

General view of the foundry with (L-R): Brian Chalker, John Wakefield (chargehand) and Bob Teasel.

General view of foundry with autoshaver in foreground, conveyors to machine room on left, spare plate racks in middle, autocaster 1 far left, Wood 4/60 number 2 caster, and Wood 4/60 number 3 caster.

American Machines

Ken says: “The Woods were American machines which were only used as a last resort as they were extremely unreliable and difficult to fix when little things went wrong.”

Plate casting with Dave Webber operating number 5. The usual crew was an operator, one to remove the plate, one to remove the tang, one to keep the metal pot at the right level, and one to operate the shaver.

Autoshaver No.6 and a plate.

Another view of the autoshaver used to plane the plate to correct thickness and to mill grooves for gripping onto the press cylinder.

An Automatic Autocaster with a plate in the cast eject position. The core of these casters was cold water cooled, and rotated through 180 degrees one plate being cast while another was removed, and could cast 4 complete plates every minute. The usual run was around 36 plates with a further 2 spares.

Automatic Autocaster 4 with Les Floyd operating and Dave Large removing the plate.

Automatic Autoplate 4 with shaver in the foreground. In the rear right is the pot used to melt down the shavings and cast them into ingots for re-use. This was done on the day shift.

Plate casting, Les Floyd operating, Dave Large waiting for new plate to be ejected, Tom Harrison in foreground operating shaver, and Alan Hart on right keeping the metal level steady.

Says Ken: “This was my “crew,” the dwarfs, so called because we always worked a man short. The metal pots were electrically heated and held 7 tons of printing metal.

Holborn machine room showing the Goss Headliner presses.

This is the foundry rest room, or booby, in the summer of 1986. Reg Barber drinking from cup, standing (L-R): Tom Hatton, Roy Clark, Roy Tomlin, in striped t-shirt leaning forwards Dave Sherwood. Back to camera with bald spot Bob Venison.

Was the writing already on the wall when this photo was taken? The poster on the notice board at the back urges union members to attend a picket at Rupert Murdoch’s “Fortress Wapping.” – D.H.

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News of the World Foundry, 1986

Dave Hughes — Sun, 11 Jun 2017 17:38:19 +0000

Thanks to Barry Adams for sending in these pictures of the last-ever hot-metal production run of the News of the World – the UK’s biggest circulation Sunday newspaper.

Barry Adams and Brian Inwood operate a Linotype and Machinery auto at the News of the World.

In Barry’s own words: “There was a crew of 4 for the Auto and a further 3 for the Auto shaver.

Auto crew operator – one taking the plate another the tang (the waste above the plate which had the blow holes in it and fed the plate as it cooled), and the pot hand who regulated the metal temperature and also put the blacks in (blacks were yesterday’s plates covered in black ink).

The shaver trimmed the plates for length and diameter. Crewing shaver front looked the plate over, put the page number on and pushed it into the machine.

Shaver back looked plate over and took any rough edges off the plate also used his runner to remove or disfigure a typo if need be. Plate stacker put the plates onto a trolley and wheeled them to the machine room door.

Four plates a minute and on the set page the presses were rolling by the 30th plate cast. The Sun was 46 plates of each page.”

The late crew in the foundry after completing the last edition of the News of the World before the Wapping dispute.

Says Barry: “We were the late crew that night and after cleaning the foundry up, we were playing around.”

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Welcome to Metal Type

Dave Hughes — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 16:30:35 +0000

METAL TYPE is the place for printers, typesetters and newspaper workers, who fondly remember those letterpress days, to come and reminisce.

The site originally concentrated on the ingenious Linotype mechanical typesetting machine invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1884.

These machines were the mainstay of newspaper type production for almost a century and many have been preserved.

Linecasters still feature strongly on the site, but over the years the site has expanded to cover all aspects of printing trade nostalgia.

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Much of the content is unique to this site, having being submitted by site users over the years.

There are pictures of workplaces and people, videos of machines working, pictures of rare and old machines, stories from the old days, poems, limericks, etc.

Use the site’s search box to find what interests you, or take a look at the geographical or trade Categories, there is a vast amount of material.

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The Library has many hard-to-find instruction manuals as well as the internet’s largest collection of “Monotype Recorders” all fully searchable and available to download in PDF format.

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Visit the Free Ads page if you are looking for equipment, or have some to sell. Placing an advert is free, and easy.

Don’t forget to visit our carefully-selected eBay Listings (UK &US) for collectables, machines, mats, books, etc.

The Forum is the place to interact with other letterpress enthusiasts, and has some real experts in all sorts of areas, particularly present-day Monotype usage.

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Links: Clicking on the heading above the picture of the item will take you to a post on the Metal Type Forum where you can read the full seller’s description. Clicking on the picture or the link below the picture will take you to the item on eBay. Clicking the “Latest Highlights” button will take you to a list of items on the Metal Type Forum.

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