On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 15:48:10 -0500, Peter T. Daniels
<grammatim@...> wrote:

[nb]

>> I'm still puzzled by the recesses cut into a copper plate, and how they
>> became flat-topped type slugs.

[PTD}

> I don't know where a copper plate comes into it?

I had another look, and, surely enough, the indentations in the Cu matrix
plates had flat-bottom v-grooves. I zoomed the images to 300% in Opera to
see them better.

Sorry! My error, assuming that the sloping sides of the recesses meant
that they were V-grooves, without flat bottoms. Not so! I do know what the
printing end of a type slug looks like; sloping sides surround the
printing face.

Does the hot type metal contact the copper directly, or is the casting
matrix a replica made of something else?

===

Hoping to see the complete Thompson type-caster, I did an image-Google,
and found this nice partly-biographical description:
<http://www.apa-letterpress.org/Files/APA/TP/Thompson%20caster.html>
(Ahh, those "%20"s! A bit of fun. Must be spaces, hex, right?) The text
has some "hyphen-dashes" that distract a little.

Is this what it looks like?
<http://www.reddragonflypress.org/media/lg_imag0037.jpg>
Btw, very generally speaking, such machines may not be pretty, but when in
good condition, properly taken care of, and operated by competent people,
they usually did excellent work for decades; they didn't generally wear
out in a hurry.

You blessed people who are keeping "hot-type" (best term?) alive are a
cultural treasure. Skills that have been supplanted seem, in some cases,
not to have been lost; I expect that there are a few expert roof thatchers
(and slate roofers) in the U.K., for instance.

= = =

It's within possibility that I could make a field trip to Hartford (next
Spring?) to see the Paige Compositor and (I hope) take some photos. I'd
wantot arrange in advance, though! I fear that the Twain house's curators,
while Good People, probably would be puzzled by the mechanism of a door
latch. They probably don't love it, but I do hope I'm wrong. I gather that
some parts have been stolen by souvenir hunters. It really needs especial
recognition as a phenomenal example of mechanical engineering; perhaps it
has been recognized already, but I think not.

Considering that I have an extraordinary interest in complex mechanisms
such as the almost-awesome Marchant Silent Speed calculators, I'm
especially interested in the justifying mechanism. Apparently, it worked
more like how a hand typesetter would justify in a composing stick, rather
than the Linotype's wedge spacebands. I think that the Paige way, if what
I suspect was true, was nuts, but...

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass. (Not "MA")
Lack of decency about New Orleans' future:
<http://tinyurl.com/8eqx5> (politics, too)
That should redirect to an article by Mike Tidwell.