A Real, Working Linotype Machine
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- čas přidán 25. 11. 2012
- In which I go to Woodside Press in Booklyn to check out their Linotype machine!
Blog post with more photos of the machine: karenkavett.com/blog/1249/visi...
Previous videos:
New York Adventures: • Video
DIY Thanksgiving Crafts: • DIY Thanksgiving Crafts
Linotype: The Film: www.linotypefilm.com/
Thanks to Woodside Press for letting me come by and make this video!
www.woodsidepress.com/
And also thanks to Lauren Bird for helping to film this video!
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The montage music is The Comic Sans song by Gunnarolla:
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End music by Hank Green:
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Thanks for watching, and DFTBA!
My dad was a Linotype operator for a small newspaper in southern Minnesota. He worked the night shift and I loved visiting him at work in the evening when I was a kid since we lived within walking distance to his work. Your video brought back many happy memories.
I was a linotype operator back in the 70's, and my employer thought of putting a typewriter keyboard on one of these machines, I was just out of my apprenticeship, so he got the linotype mechanic to install the keyboard to a linotype machine. My boss had the insight that one day all future keyboarding would be done on a typewriter keyboard, how right he was. I finally bought the business and had it for 30 odd years, finishing with Macintosh computers and Imagesetters that produced negative or positive film for printer, so he could make he's metal plate for printing press. Garry from Sydney, Aus.
Hi Gary, I loved the Lino. Any jobs going?
My grandfather passed away in 2003 and was one of the few lineotype machine users left I think. The machines and his whole shop are still in Fresno at my grandma's house! Way cool video thank you
So u gonna take over the family business or what!?!
My late Father ran one of these machines for well over three decades at a small town newspaper in the Chicago suburbs. Thank you for posting this!
My Dad as well.... Canadian newspapers and SF Chronicle ... I was 8-9 years old and watched he and the others inside the loud smelly place doing this.... Imagine how boring it must have been.... omg
My father worked as a typesetter at the Chicago Tribune for over 30 years. When he retired in 1982, he was operating and troubleshooting a Mergenthaler Linotron 505.
It is too bad that your father is dead. I am sure he was a sheer genius. As a keyboard specialist, I have typewriting as my background, and I have a closeup with my computer and printers to work with printer fonts while I have been denied many job opportunities in the 1990s decade. Now I get to do it at home, instead of at someone else's workplace.
I'm glad to see younger people interested in keeping cool old technologies like letter press, typewriters and analog photography alive.
My first job ever at 15 was melting down old lineotype print & recasting them into bars to make more print for new jobs. I quickly learned Don't sweat into the molten lead, especially don't do it into the empty pour trays just before filling.
A beautiful machine. It's amazing how complicated this machine is and what genius it must have taken to design and build it - and make it reliable. It's good to see that some members of the younger generation still have an interest in such things.
...💔 ...
WUNDERBAR ...
... but nowadays unfortunately only in the museum to admire --- F*ck »Modern Times«
It's neat to see somebody be as excited about something as me!
Fun fact (story?): According to family lore, my Great-Grandmother, Frances Lenihan Looney was the first female Linotype operator in the USA, in Brooklyn or Manhattan. Judging by the dates of her kids it would have been in either the 'teens or the 30's. Love your passion!
Very interesting. My grandma was setting type on them since just before WW II.
Looks like he's got two of them (the one he's working with and another one behind him). As soon as I saw the steep angle of the magazine and only one magazine, I said "That looks like a Comet". Sure enough, when you got to the shot of the ID plate, I was right. I remember maybe 40 years ago when the Muskogee (Okla) Daily Phoenix went offset and sold and/or scrapped all their old letter press stuff. A friend of mine bought one of the linotypes and they threw in a bunch of magazines full of mats. I think it was a model 14, I remember it carried 6 magazines, 2 banks of 3 each, so you could change fonts by cranking a new magazine into place. Of course, you could also remove the magazines if you wanted a font that wasn't one of the 6 already installed.
Ever try to move one of those things? We used moving mules to lift it up about an inch one leg at a time, jam a piece of wood under it and when we had done that to all 4 feet, get a new byte and lift it again. Finally we got it up high enough to get some 4x4 lumber under it and bolt it to the lumber. Then we kept lifting and lifting until we could get some pipes under the 4x4's and roll it out the wall into the street. The newspaper had knocked out about 20 feet of the exterior wall to move new equipment in and old equipment out, not just for us, remember they needed to move their new equipment in too. So that they wouldn't miss an issue during the transition, they used the equipment of another newspaper in Okmulgee, the two of them had a standing agreement to back each other up if either paper's press broke down or what ever might keep them from running. Anyway, once we had it out in the street, he had a gin pole truck he had hired rig a chain sling under it and take it to his house (at about 3 mph, it kept trying to lift the front wheels of the truck up in the air). When they got it there, we placed it one a concrete sidewalk coming out the back door of the house, unhooked and dismissed the truck and then little by little worked it down off the lumber (reverse of how we got it up on the lumber in the first place). Then John literally built a small room attached to the house around it.
Sorry to drone on so long,
3 of them
I remember looking at the installation instructions for one, it seemed to come in sections attached by pins which were hammered in (not coming out easily). Remember the vehicles & moving equipment they had was more primitive than what we have today. I expect the machine came with a technician to assemble & test it. Probably only took a few hours once they got proficient!
I adore your giddiness and joy at being able to see a true linotype machine. We had one in the main hall of my department at college. Loved passing it everyday on my way to class.
Thank you for the video. My grandfather operated the Linotype for the Mt. Dora (Florida) Topic in the 40s and 50s, and to this day I have never seen a more fascinating machine. I share your obvious wonder at this fabulous machine.
This was a fun trip that brought back a lot of memories. I have been in the newspaper business my whole life and grew up around Linotypes. I actually have one in my shop right now that was retired in working condition about 35 years ago. With a little work, I'm sure it could be up and running again. We also still have tons of mats and magazines but they are not in such good shape. Thanks for posting this ... it's good to know that there are still working Linotypes out there and that there are still people who love and appreciate them.
My grandfather had one of these in his print shop in Brookhaven, Mississippi. His was a Mergenthaler. Mergenthaler was bought out by Harris. My grandfather taught most of the linotype operators in the states contiguous how to operate the machine. The operator not only had to operate the machine, he or she had to be able to maintain it, as well. I have very fond memories of watching him set the type for his newspaper when I was a kid.
That's awesome that they're still in use in other parts of the world!
Thank you so much for sharing this. You're right. It's a fantastic documentary.I am grateful that you brought it to my attention.
Cool vid Karen. My dad was a linotype operator for the SF Chronicle - Examiner from 1960 to 1976. I remember as a young boy going down and checking these out. They were made by a Company called , "Merganthaler" as I recall. Quite a way to make a living. Neat to see you excited about an old machine like that. Thanks for posting.
Great attempt. It's not easy to shoot and then edit, so those of you who have never presented your idea in a video, please don't criticize a newbie who invests in an idea and CARRIES IT OUT to the best of their knowledge. There are too many ways to do it and it gets better with constructive critique, so don't be discouraged by a few lousy comments.
You're just bursting with enthusiasm. I just saw one of these machines in person, and nothing quite beats seeing and trying this in real life
As a child I spent hours watching my father work on his linotype. I knew all movements by heart.
Thank you from Italy!
Very nice to see and thank you for posting. I am not that old, but I have worked with one of these magnificent machines when I was 12 years old. I am now 49 y.o. and it brings back fond memories. My uncle had one. It was his profession.
I worked on the Lino machines in Glasgow (Scotland) for many years and never yet saw anybody press the spaceband with a finger---it was done with side of the pinky. An experienced lino man only used 2 fingers of the right hand and 2 fingers of the left (index and middle)
For those with an interest in Linecasting Machines there is a specific Facebook Group at facebook.com/groups/linolove/
You are right, I remember seeing my dad run a few lines, his hands would dance up and down the keyboard. It was nothing like a PC or Typewriter keyboard. I also was just 10 years old, but I remember the time he disassembled a machine and moved it for a friend. He fixed many machines, Linotypes, Intertypes, Comet's, Electrons and could identify any part of these machines.
My dad worked for the Evening and Sunday Bulletin in Philadelphia. He composed pages on those machines and I got to see one when I was 7 or so. Looks exactly as I remembered it. thnx for the memories.
Thanks for posting this video. I was working on our family's genealogy and discovered my grandfather's brother-in-law worked as a machinist on linotype machine according to a census. I had to look it up as I had no idea what it was. Amazingly complex machine. Wow
You did a great job of demonstrating how a linotype machine works. I learned how to use a linotype 40 years ago (I was 13) when I worked in a factory in Jersey City, NJ. (By that time, the linotype had already fallen out of regular use in the printing industry.) I also learned the basics of fixing the machine which was fantastic fun for a 13-year old. (My linotype maintenance duties temporarily relieved me of my stock boy duties when the "linotype operator" had a problem.)
Not a criticism, but the only important part of the process that you didn't feature in your video is how the machine slowly lowers 20-lb. lead ingots (called "pigs") into a ceramic vat where they are melted and provide the molten metal to form the "slugs".
The linotype is, as you demonstrate (and as one person commented), one of the most complicated mechanical devices that was ever invented. From a true linotype fan -- congratulations on this fantastic video and great presentation!
For those with an interest in Linecasting Machines there is a specific Facebook Group at facebook.com/groups/linolove/
Question - on casting. After the injection are the mats pulled away from the new slug and is there ever any residue from the molding process that gets on the mats? Also did the shops regularly melt down old slugs? Was there a cleaning process first/
After casting the mould wheel which holds the slug is pulled away from the mats. If there's a bad lock up you can get slight residue in a couple of places.
At The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia the slugs were melted in a big pot and ingots cast ready to be used again. There was no cleaning process.
From Danny Ellis [linotype mechanic and my husband] from Facebook group Lovers of Linecasting Machines.
I hope to see a longer show about Linotype. I have been interested in printer fonts since I graduated from high school. Working with printer fonts in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher makes the work very simple, even a child could learn keyboarding.
Great video, nice piece of history.
Brings back memories of working at a small print shop on the upper East Side of Manhattan in the mid-1970's. One of my jobs was to clean and lubricate one of those machines (and tighten things where necessary).
My late father was a linotype operator who set type for the National Geographic Magazine at Judd and Detweiler in Washington DC While in dental school school he set the front page of one of the big local newspapers on Saturday night all night before it hit the news stands or for home delivery. I remember as a child cleaning out the metal shavings out of the cuffs of his pants.
I learned about Linatype from the Twilight Zone episode "The Printer's Devil" where Burgess Meredith was the devil, who was also a Mozart of linotype operators!
I am watching that episode right now lol.
Only $4,861.23
@@brrjohnson8131 what
@@haroldfarthington7492 the devil's loan.
@@brrjohnson8131 oh yes. Haha. Fantastic episode. Burgess was a fantastic actor
Thank you for all that enthusiasm... my byline was set in hot type on one of those at the nation's oldest newspaper in continuous publication... for about 7 years before we switched to Optical and digital composition in the 1970s. Passing this video on to the Hartford Courant alumni Facebook group where a colleague just posted a vintage photograph of a lineotype operator at work on the story about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
I was a linotype operator and still know the keyboard
I love how she's always so excited, it makes me want to come out of my side life too
Yup, I had him write Don't Forget to be Awesome a few times, and Lauren and I each got to keep one of the lines!
Immensely enjoyable video. I grew up around several linotype and intertype machines.
I used to work on a printing press in Cork called a Crabtree (Vickers Crabtree)
Yay! If you find yourself in Massachusetts, please come up to Haverhill and visit the Museum of Printing. We have some amazing printing equipment, including a prototype Linotype and one of the last models ever built. Some of the people from the Museum are in the Linotype Movie. The museum also provided a number of props and consultation for the movie "The Post" with Tom Hanks.
I'm a Monotype man myself, but the Linotype machines were great for setting 'straight matter.' Newspaper columns were ideal for this machine. The operators had to interpret the reporter's abbreviations in order to make sense of what he was writing. All of this is a thing of the past. I am happy that I have seen this era and that of the computer in my lifetime.
I have my name in lead from that machine! Thank you Woodside Press!
I worked as a programmer for a check printing company in the late 80's They used 3 of these which set tupe using a punch tape reader. They were really cool machines however this was at the very end of checks using letter press to be printed. Now with Square and Paypal and online banking it looks like even printed checks are getting fewer and far between.
The [micro]computer has changed the way things are being done for three scores, plus more years. It is not what it used to be.
My great Uncle ran one of these in Birmingham, AL. Thanks for posting!
Haha oh that noise. I like my sound of shock when Davin turned it off manually. If only we'd known that before!
Like the History Guy says, "It's history worth remembering." You might have mentioned that this and similar devices took type setting from about 2k letters an hour to about 6k letters an hour in about 1902? Love your enthusiasm.
My dad used to operate those things in the 80s. He sometimes brought back our names in Linotype. I wish I still had them. You should have gotten him to do that...
This is the nerdiest thing ever and the most awesome thing ever. Why aren't there more nerds like you in the world...
this is seriously really really cool
That was a great video, thanks for sharing!
The last place I worked at had 90 machines just imagine how excited this young lady would be seeing those.
Hey thanks for the video. I just saw a Twilight Zone episode called Printer's Devil (4th season). Burgess Meredith plays the Devil trying to get a newspaperman's soul. The Devil is a linotype operator and they have one that he uses in the episode. It caught my attention and I have been watching all the youtube stuff I can find. Im sure youve seen that old black and white one about 35 minutes. Im going to watch the documentary this weekend.
I saw the first time a machine like that in the local newspaper printer in my city, in Manizales, Colombia, and yeah it is excitement! pretty nostalgic younger generations didn't even imagine time ago those machines were the way to publish large volumes of printings
Just saw the Twilight Zone episode Printer's Devil where Burgess Meredith plays Mr. Smith who is a skilled Linotype operator & the devil.
Awesome video, now I have to find Linotype: The Film.
Hi, im José, from Costa Rica. Im an printerman, i do like to see just one of all that beautyful machines. That take me to the pass. Thank you. ( i don´t speak in english, just a little bit.)
I have never cringed because of editing before. Well done.
Your energy is adorable.
Thanks for this. And thanks for the reference to the Linotype movie. I'm doing some research circa 1917 and trying to find out exactly how things were printed. I'm also trying to figure out how they printed photos. As a general rule, the papers I've looked at from that time use very few photos, but they do use SOME. Need to figure all that out. So thanks for being part of my journey down the rabbit hole of research! 8-)
Look up Half-tone
This brings back such great memories. My dad owned a printing business and had two Linotypes. The Heidelberg presses he had used to fascinate me so much as a kid. I learned every process from stripping to typesetting to running the presses. Both letterpress and off-set. So what do I do as a career....
Firefighter/Paramedic. Lol
I was a linotype operator and compositor with a morning newspaper in Ireland
I started working at Portage Printing in Michigan about a month ago. While exploring the back warehouse, which has a variety of old printing presses that they use mostly for die cutting, they have an old type-31 Linotype machine and a hodgepodge of fonts to go with it. I would love to see that get up and running again.
I worked with my dad in his printshop and did that bring back memories from the 70s
Holy Crap that was so cool, I want to watch that film now, maybe over christmas break
Great vid, brings back great memories. I served my apprenticeship on a Linotype.
Every Monday I had to do the “melting up”. Ha! 🐒
Soy uno de los últimos linotipistas de España y, aunque estoy jubilado y tuve que dejar la linotipia hace muchos años, pues se impuso la fotocomposición y más tarde la autoedición y todas estas modernidades, por mis venas sigue corriendo el plomo y tengo en mi memoria cada pieza de la máquina. Para mí fue algo vocacional y siempre seré linotipista.
I remember talking to a guy who operated a linotype machine, obviously this conversation was many decades ago.
Our High School print shop had a Linotype in the 1970s. They also had a Compugraphic Jr.
Super cool. I just finished reading about how Mark Twain was financially ruined by the Linotype machine but I hadn't heard of it. Thanks so much for your video. It was fun and informative. That thing looks impressively industrial.
Actually Mike, Twain invested in the Paige Compositor, which, while faster than the linotype, was much too complicated and tempermental, with over 18,000 parts. Only 2 were ever built over a 16 year period by Paige himself. But they were $6million a piece in todays dollars. The Linotype was far simpler (Ottmar Mergantholer was a watchmaker's apprentice, and his early teenage training in Germany taught him about manufacturing tolerances and simplification. Paige's machine only was considered for sale in 1887, while Mergantholer's LinoType had been being sold since 1885. If you watch any of the training films on how the machine operates, it is amazing the amount of detail Ottmar had to keep in his head, as the amount of work the machine has to do each cycle is huge. The design was so perfect right off the bat that last machine made in 1965 is almost the same as the first one 80 years earlier.
I learned how to operate a line-o-type in 1962 and ran one at local newspaper until 1964 when I entered the Marine Corps. Short career but was interesting.
That is so cool. I've never seen one of those before. I imagine that if I knew more, I would be foaming at the mouth due to the pure, unbridled awesome.
Can anyone tell me roughly how much one of the magazines weighs? Wish I could find one locally in AZ to see up close and personal.
these are a great feet in engineering i loved watching these things when we had them at Lee printing CO. Dalton GA.
Thanks for mentioning it -- I just went and watched that from this video :)
cool! I saw that documentary thanks to you, very interesting!
So what exactly does it do? does it make stamps basically?
I recently got a tour of the behind the scenes of a big library branch - where the books are sorted, processed, offices, etc. It was pretty cool.
Lovely seeing one of these again. I used to use one back in the '60s. What always tickled ne was the way the used types were sorted back into their magazine. Much easier that putting the typs back in their tray by hand. "Mind your "p"s and "q"s ". Do any of you remember the trick of turning the blocks of types upside down in order to read them?
A Compositor always reads type upside down left to right. I could read a page just as quick as you would a printed page. I think the Monotype was a a much more interesting machine.
Thanks for the video, would like to have seen more of the mechanical side of the machine, how it sorted the letter etc.
It's so crazy how recently linotype machines were in use... my grandpa used to do typesetting on one. :)
That's so cool! Also I'm a fan of his hat. And I like the don't forget to be awesome:)
I enjoy anything that is used in typesetting. I wonder if each Linotype typesetter uses one font at a time and is the typewriter has an asdf keyboard.
Great video.
that is one damn awesomemachine!!
I though the two we have were somewhat rare, but it looks like there are quite a few out there. I guess a ton of them were made.
sooooo coooool!
awesome!
I want one also. I love it. But it takes 220 volt and three phase. That would be hard even in a big house. It would be in a basement and it would take a truck and a crane to get it in. Too bad but it is so beautiful.
I had to watch the montage twice because the first time I was too busy singing "COMIC SANS IS THE BEST FONT IN THE WORLD..."
What do they make?
I miss this kind of YouTubing, it’s really a lot more authentic and visceral
Woah. That was cool.
Serendipitously I just watched another video on Linotype today; Ink&Paper by Ben Proudfoot. Wonderful short doco on the last Linotype company in L.A.
All mechanical, no electronics. Amazing.
Firstly: jealous. Secondly: you spelled Booklyn. I like that. It's like a town made of books :)
Something cool that has happened to me recently... I published a draft of my book. It was a gift from a friend. I spent a year writing it. Now I get to edit it! :D It is a good book too! If I may say so myself. (that was a few weeks ago, but I guess it still counts)
What's even cooler than this is that I clicked the link to take me to your blog post on this, and your website is absolutely gorgeous! I need to click around it this weekend, when I have all of the time at my disposal. I'm a big fan of that cyan accent color. Or would it be spot color for this? I'm sure you've mentioned the difference in a video at some point. :]
They look like a fascinating nightmare - even more complex than a transmission. Wonder how often they break down.
Back in my country they still have and use all these old machines to create flyers and business cards. For some reason I like the smell of dry ink. :)
I even had a hand press the little ones you see in the movies usually forging documents
I did my printing apprenticeship with this system. just before computers took over. So antiquated but very interesting.
so is this machine kind of like a giant typewriter that can also make multiple copies?
Hi Karen!
I used to run a LinoType at my dad's small print shop when I was between 10 and 13 years old. Ours was a 1900 vintage, model 5. The 1965 model shown on Wikipedia is almost exactly the same (that one was a model 6). I too liked the movie. One thing that always bugged me about the film is they never showed the machine doing a complete cycle, which is under 9 seconds. Do you have any video of the machine while it is cycling from the left or right sides of the machine? Thanks, Bill Howland
I love your video as well as many others, greetings from peru ... by the way you have a beautiful smile =) ;)
I need some Comic Sans matrices for my Linotype. Anyone know where I can get some?
Oh, and if you know anything about Papyrus matrices, let me know!
Thanks Ryan! Spot color is generally just used when you're printing, so I'd go with accent color ;)
A Great sweet Memorise My Grand Father with this Machine long long time ago,That's machine type Lynotipe or Monotype tipesetter.