Tag Archives: Shakespeare Press Museum

The Smyth book sewing machine is an extraordinary device

For over five years I have been working to restore a 1935 Smyth book sewing machine. You can read several posts on that topic here, mostly related to the mechanics of getting the machine running after a long dormancy, and … Continue reading

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The Linotype and Intertype catalogs

In the previous post I described how I published these out-of-print booklets. These are links to the PDF versions of those publications. Please feel free to download them.

Posted in Gadgets, History, Printing and Printing Processes, Restoring antique printing machines, Technology, Typography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Of molten lead and ChatGPT

At the core of The Blognosticator are posts about the graphic arts, printing processes, solutions to printing processes, and related items. The blog was originally an arm of Graphic Arts Monthly magazine, who hired me in 2000 to write blogs, … Continue reading

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Gliding into a saw restoration

This is Part 2 of my story about restoring an antique Hammond Glider “TrimOsaw” for the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly. To read the first part, click here. I got to the point of removing the aluminum nameplate from … Continue reading

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Restoring that ol’ saw – a Hammond Glider

Now that the Smyth machine is working, I decided to take on a new project. Last fall I offered to restore a 1960s era Hammond Glider TrimOsaw for the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly. This machine is best described … Continue reading

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The Smyth book sewing machine is now running!

Some of you may recall my obsession with a 1935 Smyth book sewing machine and all of the steps it took to restore it and get it running again. After my return from Germany last September, I worked a lot … Continue reading

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Designing a monogram font

Years ago I made a reproduction-quality proof of a type font in the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly. This font is comprised a sets of three letters that can be assembled into monograms. Monograms were quite popular for business … Continue reading

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Lining Livermore, der zweite Teil

This is a continuation of a blog I wrote two days ago. To read the first part, click here. After I put all the letters (called “glyphs” In typography) into a master Adobe Illustrator document, I built the destination environment for the … Continue reading

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Drawing the Lining Livermore font

Deep in the recesses of the back room of the Shakespeare Press Museum at California Polytechnic State University is a cabinet. It contains about 20 drawers of hand-set metal type. We never use this type because it is difficult to … Continue reading

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Electronic motor control
and my obsession with a 1935 bookbinding machine

This is the second part of my obsession story. To read the first part, please click here. And that’s where my odyssey began. Alternating current induction motors use the frequency of the line power (60 Hz in our case) to … Continue reading

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