How a Linotype press set machine works

[Doc_Stihl]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32RKn46E6Ig

Lots of us handle linotype. I was impressed with how the operation actually works.

[country gent]

The big trick is if I remeber correctly is when printing eveything is mirror image.

[Gelandangan]

Bloody awesome!

Thanks muchly for the share!!

[HeavyMetal]

actually upside down and backwards!

Mom set type for years before offset press's got to our little town in N Cal where I grew up.

Mom showed me how, not hard, to do it and it's been a small blessing when sitting at a table with a guy holding a quote from a competitor and he doesn't know I can actually read while he's trying to beat me down for another hundred bucks on price.

Need to watch the vid with the GF.

[SWANEEDB]

Anybody want a complete press setup, I know where one is, all the stuff you need to do your own printing, Ha, I got the lino tho.
This equipment could be had for a very little $ or nothing, just get it out of these folks basement, lot of equipment there.

[bangerjim]

Anybody want a complete press setup, I know where one is, all the stuff you need to do your own printing, Ha, I got the lino tho.
This equipment could be had for a very little $ or nothing, just get it out of these folks basement, lot of equipment there.

That's how I got mine in michigan! Complete rotary 2 fly-wheel press from the 1880's, 55 complete faces of type (10-150pt) hundreds of pounds of ornaments, type cabinets and drawers up the wazoo. All the type is foundry type. All for $35.00! I would never melt any of it down. I have printed many things with it and now use the type in my 3 hot foil embossing machines!

I have played "printer's devil" more than once! Unique and interesting piece of history. I saw one just like it in operation in Greenfield Village.

bangerjim

[Pb2au]

My dad has owned and operated a printing business for over 40 years. I grew up in the shop watching my dad throw type. I worked there until I was in my early twenties, so one of the tricks you learn is how to read backwards/upside down. It is fun when I am reading manuals like that with customers, it really shakes them up.
Pop still has three presses that use movable type!
Up in Dayton there is a museum that still has a fully operational Lino-type machine. If any of you get a chance, go to Carillon Park and check it out.

[DukeInFlorida]

One of my shooting buddies ( Bad Luther) and I went over to a small town on the northern coast of Maine a few years ago, and bought all the linotype from a printer guy who had been working from his garage. His linotype machine was for sale ($200 would have bought it, including the entire library of brass tags, etc... While we were there, he turned it on, and demonstrated it for us. Seems like LOTS of effort for the result.

In the day, it was the only way to get quality "engraved" type invitations, and other important printed documents.

We scooped up 3700 pounds of lino at 27 cents a pound, and didn't want the linotype machine. I presume it got scrapped out for cast iron metal.

Oh!

One other linotype story................ hahaha

We had barrels of strips of linotype from that haul.....

A LONG time ago, I attended a printers "convention", and managed to get a print guy to make me a "line of type" with my name in lino. I have cherished it all these years...

So, while splitting up the lino from the haul, I went to my desk, and came up with a piece with my name on it, and told Bad Luther that I "FOUND" the strip, with MY NAME ON IT.... in the barrel I was working on... what were the odds??!!! I never fessed up to what I had done. He always thought it was neat to have found my name in a barrel.... Wonder if he's still looking for his own name in his portion of the haul.

[NewbieDave007]

^^^lol. Nice Duke.

[Mk42gunner]

I remember going on class trip, (big trip, we walked uptown) to the local newspaper when I was in the third grade. They had recently began to send the paper out to be printed, but the editor showed us how the old press worked.

I have often wondered where all the linotype went from that paper. Of course by the time I retired and moved back to this country, the paper had moved to the old doctor's office and had also been sold at least once.

Robert

[Blacksmith]

For anyone interested in printing here are some links to get you started. Actually letterpress printing is as interesting as casting and reloading and has a lot in common.

Printing Forum
http://www.briarpress.org/discussion

Introduction To Letterpress Printing
http://www.fiveroses.org/intro.htm

Handpress they are the older type press, think Ben Franklin.
http://www.letterspace.com/handpress/index_old.html

Printing supplies.
http://order.nagraph.com/storefront.html

[Dean D.]

Awesome link, thank you! My Paternal Grandmother worked as a Linotype Operator many years ago at a major newspaper in Spokane, WA. Now I have an understanding of just what she did at that job!

[mnkyracer]

I work at a book distributer. They used to print books at our facility but that ended around 30 years ago. One of the maintenance guys said that they melted down all the lino and stored it for several years. A big wig didn't like the idea of all this "bad, harmful" lead laying around and they trashed it all. Don't even think they scrapped it - just put it in with the regular trash.:sad:

[facetious]

The first time you get to see how a news paper is printed it is as cool as all get out. After seeing it over and over and over for the last thirty five years, not so much.

I started in printing in the mid 70's and in news paper in 79. I started my apprenticeship on a HOE Letter press. Thy had stopped using lead in 76 and went to aluminum saddles with a aluminum plate with a poymer lettering.

I first started to get in to reloading and casting about that time and it seamed that every one had some lino sitting at home that thy were happy to get rid of. It my seam strange but I was mixing it with WW's to get the WW's to go farther. I still have two lead plates sitting in the basement that I have never had the heart to melt down. I mostly have them so I have some thing to kick in to. At 40 lb each thy will massage your toes and not move a bit:shock:. I must have 20 to 30 lb's of scrap lino that I have melted down.

It would seam that I hit the sweat spot in the news paper biz. I got in on the tail end of letter press went to Goss offset to Manroland Geo Man offset. I have got to see it go from twisting turn wheels and flipping levers to every thing being done from some computer screen. Well all most. You still have some poor SOB loading one and a half ton rolls of paper in to the reels to feed the dammed thing. Come to think about it the guy I was working with tonight and my self loaded 30 ton's. That was just on our press, the other four presses can load there own!

With five years to go till I can retire and the way news papers are going I may be able to tell people that I went from letter press to seeing them lock the doors and turn out the lights.

[trapper9260]

When I was young my parents told me about type setters but did not know what it really was untill now after see the link that was given about it .Thank you

[David2011]

The only tenured professor in our College of Communications, a real genius type (NOT!), was teaching a typesetting class. He declared that computer set type was a passing fad and hot set type would prevail.

David

[facetious]

"The only tenured professor in our College of Communications, a real genius type (NOT!), was teaching a typesetting class. He declared that computer set type was a passing fad and hot set type would prevail."

You never know. He may be one EMP bomb from being right!

[shdwlkr]

had to learn how to run a monotype machine way back in the late 60's as it was part of my college requirement. The college got the machines from a donation by the guy that had the nick name of Mr Monotype, he paid for something like 15 of these so us college kids could learn how to run them. I got to show him the new machines and type against him he was really fast and I sort of kept up. he had no mistakes I had five. Yes you read upside down and backwards. We had pigs of lead that weighted 20-60 pounds depending on how big the molten pot was. the one I had you could have two pigs melting at the same time so you didn't run out of molten lead.

[Ed Barrett]

I remember back in the 60's going into the Linotype room at Poole Brothers in Chicago, they had two rows as far as the eye could see. I was working for RCA and we set up a Video Type system That replaced all of them. Within a year we sold systems to Donnely , and a couple of other book printers. I was reloading but not casting, I could have been king of lino if I picked up what they put in the garbage. Around 1980 one of my customers bought a newspaper in Ozark Missouri I don't think they ever got rid of anything. They had 50 type boxes full of type from when they had a print job shop. I was casting at the time and bought the lot for .06 a pound. I sold the type boxes to an antique shop for several times what I paid for the type.

[opos]

In the early 80's I worked with a printing company in San Diego...the linotype method of setting type had long since been abandoned for modern type setting but the one remaining stronghold of the typesetters union was at Neyenesch printing...they had one linotype machine and a couple of operators that were used now and then for very special projects ... and they were normally "on strike"...it was really comical..the 2 guys taking turns with picket signs out front. They went on strike for some reason or another frequently and there they were...picketing...used to sort of be a landmark here..."back in the day".

[Mrupe]

Hi All,

Cool thread, I've been in printing since 1975. I started out as the delivery driver. One of my first jobs in the print shop I worked in was to tear down two Heidelberg windmill presses and palletize all the type to ship out to a local shop as surplus. If only I had realized that someday I would be able to turn that lead into bullets I would have bought the lead myself? I ran offset presses for over 13 years before I got into the front office as a planner scheduler and later as a supervisor. I still work in the office, but I now do the pre-press for my shop. That means I take the customer files and set them up for printing. It used to take a team of people to get jobs ready to print, now with the help of computers and software one person can do the job. Just another example of how technology has changed our world. Printing has been a good source of income for me, but I have been one of the lucky ones. I have worked steady for over 39 years and seen lots of changes. I have enjoyed this tread, thank you all for reminding me of the old days!