The Observation Deck

This machine still lives and breathes in Lakewood, in a little print shop called Madison Press ... which is curiously located off Detroit.

A Typewriter got married to a Casting Plant.
This is not the first line of an industrial joke. Among the countless mechanical miracles that came between the invention of moveable type and electronic publishing software like WordPress, there came something called the Linotype machine.

http://gyroscopethattakesyouplaces.word ... ing-plant/

I'm interested in what aging curiosities others have found in town--besides the buildings and people.

Great story Micahael,
You did a very good job describing a very complex machine, but I'm sure that those who weren't around before PCs will still have a difficult time just understanding the craft needed to compose a simple typeset page. It took several skilled individuals, a designer to specify the type, an operator to set it, an typesetter to lockup the galley and a proof press operator to get the impression just right. That doesn't even get it close to putting ink on the final page.
In reality it wasn't all that long ago (may be it was) late 70's early 80's that the Linotype was the mainstay of the industry. When I was a young teen 13-14 I used to work holiday's and over the summer at a typesetter downtown, recasting the used and scrap lead in to new ingots. I guess we didn't care about OSHA, 13 yr old kid with a boiling pot of lead, lifting dusty buckets metal on a hot shop floor. Yah, I can see my wife letting my 13 and 14 yr old do that summer job.

Bill

I worked many years next to a Linotype, running a Miehle Vertical press. Absolutely NO safety equipment in those days. We knew we had problems when the fumes from the lead remelt made us hungry...

There are (were?) good examples of both machines at the Henry Ford Museum. I had to laugh, at that time, I was making my living with museum pieces.

Wow, Bill, I had such a safe childhood . . . my first job beyond mowing Gramma's lawn on Lincoln was as a caddie. It was wholesome and safe, carrying the golf bags around for 6 miles at a time.

My brother had a gig maintaining gasoline engines.

One of the commenters on my blog brought this film to my attention, which I haven't seen, but the trailer makes it look spectacular.

http://www.linotypefilm.com/

Even into the nineties, I remember working with designers and looking at four-color separations of print jobs. It's a different world.

I don't know how or if a linotype machine could handle some text effects we take for granted these days .... like justification, for example. I've justified foundry type ... This involves slipping little bits of copper and brass in between the letters so they're all spaced evenly and make a straight right edge. There's an acronym for what that is: PITA. and I'm not talking about the bread. But the result is undeniably beautiful.

Insert Jim O'Bryan joke here.

Thanks for your post, Mike. It takes a special kind of engineering mind to design elaborate electromechanical devices that both do their job a do it reliably. I forwarded your post to a friend of mine who works for a Very Large imaging company and he sent me this photo he shot today at a client's shop in downtown Cleveland.



This reminds me of the old Lakewood Typewriter on Madison where my father bought office equipment. The most fascinating at dad's office, next to the blueprinting machines, was the old full function Ascota/Robotron East German adding machine ("rechenmaschine") he bought there. Apparently, the proprietor of Lakewood Typewriter was one of the few in the US who tried selling those. They were of exceptional quality, but I suppose the average American businessman of 1970 wouldn't buy a "commie" business machine! The earth moved with each calculation. Multiplication was a minor seismic event. But it never made an error.

These days, though, old office equipment may get you a visit from the bomb squad:



http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2012/01/31/news/doc4f26c6b73f52c086051217.txt

So excuse me while I go to the workshop to retube my TV so I can watch some tapes on the betamax.

Signed,

another Aging Curiosity