A (Brief) Hot Metal Taxonomy

1. Why this Taxonomy?

To a beginner, especially to a beginner brought up on only computer typography, the differences between the various kinds of "hot metal" equipment can at first be confusing. The terminology wasn't planned in advance, it simply evolved with the technology and the industry. The "old hands" simply knew this equipment because they used it, and some seem to have forgotten how new it must have appeared to them on their first day on the job.

I've tried, therefore, to develop a terminology which clearly distingishes these types of machines. This terminology isn't necessarily standard, but should at least be free of confusion.

2. Summary Table

Machines which make type (including spaces/quads):

Machines which make border, rule, and leading material:

3. Matrices

These are machines for making type, so I've got to start with type and how to make it.

A piece of type is a positive relief model ("cameo" vs. "intaglio," if you want to get fancy) of a letter which produces a printed image by being inked on its topmost surface and pressed onto and/or partly into paper. Type is typically made of one of several alloys of lead, and is produced by casting in molds.

Here's a somewhat abstracted drawing of a single piece of type.

(From Henry, Frank S. Printing for School and Shop. (NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1920.) p. 77.)

A "matrix" (plural: matrices) is a mold, typically of brass, which contains a letterform (or some other symbol or design) and with which a piece of type is cast. Most commonly, the "matrix" is just the front part of the entire mold which casts the type.

Here is a matrix as used to cast traditional type.

(From Southward, John. Practical Printing: A Handbook of the Art of Typography. Arthur Powell and George Joyner, Eds. Sixth Edition. London: The "Printer's Register" Office, 1911. Vol. I, P. 85.)

Traditionally, matrices were produced by first making a punch (of the positive letterform) and punching ("striking," "sinking") the punch into a piece of brass (creating the negative matrix form). In the illustration above, the punch is shown on the left, an untrimmed "strike" of the punch into a brass proto-matrix in the middle, and the trimmed-up or "justified" matrix on the right. The punch is thus the "master" form of the type, although considerable skill may be involved in striking or sinking it into the matrix, and in justifying the matrix. A single punch can produce many matrices, which in turn can produce many, many types, fonts (specific collections) of which in turn may used to print many sheets, and reassembled to print many other sheets. These processes of punchcutting, matrix sinking, and molding to cast type were the genius of Gutenberg's invention more than the simple notion of movable type itself. This is goldsmiths' work.

Traditionally also punches were shaped ("cut") by hand. This is slow work, and while it was feasible when type casting was restricted to type foundries, it was an impediment in "hot metal" type casting where each composing machine was its own type foundry, with its own fonts of matrices. The solution to this was the punch and matrix engraving machine devised by Linn Boyd Benton. This allowed the relatively rapid production of punches by eliminating the craft of the punchcutter. (At times matrices were also engraved directly with these machines, skipping the punching stage.)

Here's an illustration of a very early form of this machine, from Benton's 1885-12-22 U.S. patent, no. 332,990:

(My apologies for the moire effects in this image. They disappear when you click to the full sized image.)

Patricia A. Cost, who has written the excellent article "Linn Boyd Benton, Morris Fuller Benton, and Typemaking at ATF." (Printing History. Nos. 31/32: 27-44. Available online at: http://www.printinghistory.org/htm/journal/articles/31-32-Cost-Benton.pdf has a blog at http://patriciacost.wordpress.com/ in which she has photographed the No. 55 Benton Matrix Engraver at the Dale Guild Type Foundry (entry for: February 22, 2008).

Here is an illustration of the use of a punch/matrix engraver to produce a Linotype punch.

(From Linotype Leadership (NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1930). Pages 63 and 64. Interestingly, the photograph on the left is obviously the source of the drawing of the same process in Beatrice L. Warde's "Cutting Type for the Machines," The Dolphin No. 2 (1935): 65. This is availble online at Carnegie-Mellon University's Posner Library: http://posner.library.cmu.edu/Posner/books/book.cgi?call=655.1_D66_NO._2 This is particularly interesting, as Warde identifies her technical discussions with the practices of the Lanston Monotype Corportion (London), not the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. Of course, she does illustrate both a Monotype matrix and a Linotype matrix (identified by Triangle and number, even), so perhaps not too much should be made of this.)

The back part of the mold is usually pretty simple/standard, and (adjusted for type size) a single back would be used over many different matrices. In typical usage, the term "mold" means this more generic back part of the mold. The "Topic" linking image for this Notebook, in fact, shows a mold (for an Intertype brand composing linecaster):

(From Intertype Corporation. The Intertype: Its Function, Care, Operation and Adjustment. (Brooklyn, NY: Intertype Corporation, [see below]). Section [Volume] II: Casting Mechanism, p. 53.)

"Foundry" type is type produced by a type foundry for setting (composing) by hand. It is made using matrices and molds, and although it is certainly hot when cast, it is "cold metal" by the time the type reaches the (human) typesetter and his/her composing stick.

"Hot metal" type is type produced on demand by any of various machines. It is also created using matrices and molds, in various ways described below. Although the type is more or less cool by the time you pick it up on a galley, it is created from molten lead alloy interactively by the composing machine operator - so the term "hot metal" seems apt.

Here are pictures of Linotype hot metal composing linecaster matrices (the Intertype brand of composing linecaster uses compatible matrices).

(From The Big Scheme of Simple Operation. (Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1940.) Pages 7 and 8.)

(This terminology of "matrix" and "mold" is standard. Indeed, the matrix and mold go back to the origins of movable type.)

4. Noncomposing Linecasters (Ludlow, A-P-L)

A "noncomposing linecaster" (not a standard term) is a machine in which multiple matrices, each representing an individual letter, ligature, or other typographic element, are assembled by hand to form an entire line of molds. The machine then casts the line as one or more multicharacter units ("slugs") of lead alloy type for use in printing. After use, the matrices must be returned to their storage cabinets by hand in a fashion analagous to distributing hand set type back to its job case by hand.

The Ludlow machine was the most common brand of noncomposing linecaster. It was used primarily at the larger point sizes to produce headlines and similar material.

Here's a rather indistinct illustration of a Ludlow from an early advertisement.

(From the 1911 Chicago edition of the Printing Trades Blue Book (Chicago: A. F. Lewis & Co., 1911.))

Here is a photograph of a Ludlow at Larry Raid's Working Ludlow Museum in Iowa. The distinctive Ludlow matrix cabinets are in the background.

(Photo Copyright © 2008 by Jessica C. White, used by permission. Please do not reproduce it without her permission (it is not covered by the Creative Commons license which covers the parts of this Notebook that I have written.))

I cast my first Ludlow slugs (well, to date my only Ludlow slugs) on this machine at Larry Raid's " Linotype University VI" in 2008. Here they are:

Note that beyond a certain size Ludlow material must be cast in multiple slugs (all from one composing stick, cleverly). You can see how they automatically overlap to produce continuous text. The lower slug pair above is as-cast. The upper pair has been trimmed on a composing room saw. Remember: printers read from left to right, bottom to top, upside-down.

Of course, I neglected to include any scale in the images above. The length of the body of each slug is 22 1/2 picas, and the height of this particular face is 48 points.

Ludlows can cast small as well as large faces. Here's a slug cast by another student at the class in what I think is 8 pt. (The photo is a bit fuzzy; the fuzziness is in my cheap snapshot, not the slug.)

Here's a different Ludlow:

These are two photographs by me of the Ludlow at the Midwest Old Threshers Printers' Hall in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. (They are covered by the Creative Commons license of this page, and may be reproduced subject to it; they're not very good pictures, though.)

The Ludlow is "noncomposing" because it doesn't do the composition of the line automatically; you have to do this yourself, by hand. It is a "linecaster" because its output is a single cast line of type.

The "All-Purpose Linotype" ("A-P-L") was an attempt by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company to compete with the Ludlow. It is difficult (ok, it was difficult for me) to comprehend exactly what an "A-P-L" was from the material on it in the Linotype literature. Only when I had the opportunity to see one in person did I realize that it is, mechanically, basically the casting section of a Linotype with all of the composing equipment stripped away.

(From Linotype Machine Principles. (Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1940.) Pages 445 and 454.)

The composing stick for the A-P-L, shown at the right above, is different from that of the Ludlow, but the general principle is the same. The standard matrices for the A-P-L were, I believe, unique to it. However (and again I'm writing here from what I've been told and what I've "reverse-engineered" from documents) adapters were available to allow the use of both standard Linotype matrices and of Ludlow matrices (hence the name "All-Purpose"?)

5. Composing Linecasters (Linotype/Intertype)

A "composing linecaster" (also not a standard term) is a machine which, under the control of an operator at a keyboard, composes multiple individual matrices into an entire line of molds. The machine then casts this line as a single unit of lead alloy type for use in printing. The machine then automatically distributes the matrices back into the magazine from which they were fed initially.

It is "composing" because it does the finer points of composition, such as line justification, automatically. It is a linecaster, of course, because it casts an entire line ("slug") of type.

Here's a slug of type, shown with the line of matrices from which it might have been cast. (As presented, the slug is in the orientation in which a printer would commonly read it, left-to-right and upside-down. To produce this orientation for the photograph, and maintain the correct relationship between the slug and the matrices, the matrices have been shown upside-down (relative to the position they would normally assume in the machine).

(From the 1949 Intertype Parts and Accessories book (Brooklyn, NY: Intertype Corporation, 1949). Page x.)

There are going to be quite a lot of images of Linotypes and Intertypes in these Notebooks. Here's one to start with. It's a Model 5 (High Base), introduced in 1906. By that time the Linotype had already been a commercial success for sixteen years or more (the "Square Base" Linotype of 1890 was the basic redesign of the prototypes into the modern machine, and the Model 1 of 1892 set the basic pattern for all subsequent machines), but with the Model 5 they got all of the bugs out and really hit their stride. I set my first line of type on a Model 5, and my Model X probably started out as a Model 5. It's a sweet little machine.

(From Thompson, John S. The Mechanism of the Linotype 7th ed. (Chicago: The Inland Printer, 1918.) Page 171.)

The makers of these machines were always at pains to emphasize that they were not "typesetting" machines. A typesetting machine would have been a machine which took individual pieces of type and composed (set) them. A composing linecaster takes matrices, composes them, and casts a line of type from them. This distinction is of course more important for builders of machines than it is for their users.

The Linotype and its later competitor the Intertype were composing linecasters. So was the less common Linograph. They were best suited for composing large bodies of text type, although later models, especially, were well adapted to produce much advertising matter in large point sizes.

Here's a Model 28 Linotype from 1935. It's nearly 30 years later than the Model 5 shown above, and with its side magazines and extra wide main magazines it is considerably more massive. But the core of Ottmar Mergenthaler's design remains unchanged in it, as it did through the last "Elektron" Linotypes over 40 years after this one.

(From Linotype Machine Principles. (Brooklyn, NY: Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1940.) Page 291.)

A Linotype or Intertype shop might well also employ a noncomposing linecaster such as a Ludlow.

6. Composing Typecasters (Monotype)

A "composing typecaster" (also not a standard term) is a machine which, under the control of an operator at a keyboard, casts individual pieces of type and composes them into set matter. It is a "composing" machine (like a Linotype/Intertype), but it is not a linecaster.

The two engravings above are from the 1918 New York edition of the Printing Trades Blue Book (NY: A. F. Lewis & Co., 1918). Digitized by Google. The photograph above is from the Stereograph Cards collection of the United States Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division. It is from a stereographic print by the Keystone View Company, circa 1917, and it depicts "Setting type on one hundred monotype machines, Bureau of Printing and Engraving, Washington, D.C." Reproduction No. LC-USZ62-106126. Digital ID: cph 3c06126.

The Linotype or Intertype operator enjoys an intimate relationship with the matrices and the casting process. On the Linotype, matrices may be added or removed from the assembling elevator before they are cast, and indeed it is possible (albeit slow) to assemble an entire line by hand. The casting also takes place right next to the operator, and the operator can and must set up and control the casting process.

With the Monotype, the relationship is more distant. The operator sits at one machine and composes the lines. (The keyboard unit is shown in the first illustration above, and an operator at a keyboard in the Stereograph View, above.) These are transferred via paper tape (I believe; I've never run a Monotype) to a different machine which casts the text (shown in the second illustration, above). The casting unit may be in a different room entirely, and may be operated at a different time by a different person. The Monotype matrices, being controlled strictly by the machine rather than by the machine and operator, and being used sequentially rather than potentially in parallel, are held in a smaller magazine which is manipulated by the casting unit to produce individual types. Here's a very schematic early advertising illustration of one. Each square in the image below indicates a single matrix. The casting machine moves this magazine so that the desired matrix is over a mold, adjusts the mold as appropriate, casts a single type, and then repeats the process for the next matrix/type.

(From Southward, John. Practical Printing: A Handbook of the Art of Typography. Arthur Powell and George Joyner, Eds. Sixth Edition. London: The "Printer's Register" Office, 1911. Vol. I, unnumbered page 17 of the advertising material supplementing the volume.)

The Monotype was the most common brand of composing typecaster. Throughout the 20th century, the Monotype was the basic technological competitor to the Linotype and Intertype.

M&H Type has a short video clip on their website of a Monotype casting machine in operation.

Google Books has made available digitally (and free) The Monotype System: A Book for Owners & Operators of Monotypes. (Philadelphia: Lanston Monotype Machine Co., 1912).

7. Foundry Typecasters vs. Sorts Typecasters vs. Monotype

The terminology of this taxonomy becomes difficult at this point because a "typecaster" is also simply a machine for casting ordinary type ("foundry" type). Moroever, and especially today after the demise of most of the typefounding industry, Monotype machines are being used for producing type for hand setting. (But the lead alloy used in the Monotype is different from, and slightly softer than, the alloys traditionally used in "foundry" type.) So the Monotype is both a "composing typecaster" and possibly also an ordinary "typecaster," but it would not be said to cast "foundry" type.

As if this weren't enough, there is some question as to what might actually be called a "foundry" typecaster. Clearly, a machine used by a traditional late 19th through mid 20th century typefoundry for producing type using "foundry" type metal alloy would qualify. I presume, for example, that the Barth typecasting machine used by American Type Founders Company, would be such a machine. (See for example Richard E. Huss. The Development of Printers' Mechanical Typesetting Methods: 1822-1925. (Charlottesville, VA: The University Press of Virginia for the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 1973): 13-15.)

(Aside: Since writing this section, I've done a more general survey of typecasters (foundry, sorts, and otherwise) in Typecasting Machines.)

Here's a machine from Southward's Practical Printing which is called there a "Type-Casting Machine." It is a "pivotal" or "Bruce" style of hand-operated typecasting machine widely used in type foundries (but also used in smaller operations outside of regular type foundries).

(From Southward, John. Practical Printing: A Handbook of the Art of Typography. Arthur Powell and George Joyner, Eds. Sixth Edition. London: The "Printer's Register" Office, 1911. Vol. I, P. 85)

However, other machines which cast individual types (with no pretence to composing them) were marketed not to type foundries but to individual printers for casting their own type (entire fonts, I suppose, but more particularly "sorts," or individual pieces of type on an as-needed basis.) Huss illustrates, for example, the early Bruce machine of 1838 (pp. 13-14), the Universal Type Caster (1906, p. 239), and especially the Thompson Type Caster (1908, p. 250; this machine was designed by the same John P. Thompson who wrote the well-known Mechanism of the Linotype.) Huss isn't specific as to what distinguished these machines from "real" foundry typecasters, but I presume that one difference is that they cast type of a softer alloy. Huss notes, for example, that the Universal Type Caster (= Nuernberger-Rettig; see illus. below) "was capable of casting metal of a harder formula than other machines in its class." Of the Thompson (which he thinks highly of), Huss says "Although not a true foundry typecaster, it is the one machine outside the orthodox type foundries that has been in use by many so-called type-founders, who make and sell Thompson-cast types to printers all over the country." (250)

Here, for example, is the Nuernberger-Rettig caster. Huss would call this a Sorts Caster, but its makers claim "Foundry Quality."

(From the 1911 Chicago edition of the Printing Trades Blue Book (Chicago: A. F. Lewis & Co., 1911.)

It would appear, therefore, that one may become quite particular as to what is or is not "foundry" type or, indeed, type founding. (For myself, I simply think that it is all amazingly cool. I like every aspect of it, whether foundry casting, sorts casting, or Monotype casting.)

The history and use of foundry type casters is really more a topic for the history of the type industry, not that of individual printing establishments. (At least until someone throws a scrap foundry (or sorts) typecaster my way (dream on...) and I write it up!)

8. Stripcasters (Elrod, Monotype)

Letterpress requires more than just type. It requires spacing material as well, and rule (for printing lines, plain or decorative). A "stripcaster" or "lead and rule caster" was a machine which manufactured, on demand, such material by casting it in continuous strips.

The Elrod, manufactured by the Ludlow company, was the most common brand of stripcaster. Unfortunately, I do not yet have a nice old advertising engraving of an Elrod. For want of anything better, here is a view of one from a parts catalog.

(From: Model DS Elrod Price List of Parts. Chicago, IL: Ludlow Typograph Co., n.d.)

A number of Elrod manuals (which have better pictures than this) are available at:

The Metal Type (UK) Library, http://www.metaltype.co.uk/library.shtml

and

The Williams Stationery Company / Kadet Stationery (US, NY), http://downloads.kadetstationery.com/

Monotype also manufactured material makers. I don't really know my Monotype history very well, but I believe that the "Type and Rule Caster" illustrated below is a very early such machine, which lead to the later Monotype "Material Making Machine."

(From Sherman, Frank M., "History and Development of the Monotype Machine," in Frank M. Sherman, Ed. The Genesis of Machine Typesetting. Chicago: M & L Typesetting & Electrotyping Company, 1950. p. 44.)

9. Noncontinuous-Casting Material Makers

For a while, at least, Linotype also marketed a "Lead and Rule Caster." Here's a picture of it from 1917. It's basically just the casting unit of a Linotype. I don't think that this machine was capable of casting continuous strips of material (as were the Elrod and Monotype machines). Instead, I think it was used with Linotype "border" slides to cast, perhaps repeatedly, fixed-length material.

(From: Linotype Borders Rules and Dashes [title on cover] [aka] Linotype Matrices and Slides for Casting Borders, Decorations, Rules, Dashes, Braces [title on title page]. (NY [Tribune Building]: Mergenthaler Linotype Company, 1917.)

About the images

Home

Category

Up