Just a housekeeping note! I set up this sub-blog on my site to give people who had backed or preordered the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule or related products a place to see updates, as well as to post general type and printing historical photos and essays. Since the museum project has wound down, I’ll be posting going forward on my main Glog blog.
A few months ago, I acquired over 200 flongs from a fellow in Sweden who had purchased them at a thrift store that, in turn, had bought them from an estate. These were all comics intended for publication in a Swedish newspaper, some in English and some in Swedish. The vast majority, 191 of them, were Sunday Peanuts comics flongs in English as color separations (see below).
Each Sunday comic required four flongs to produce the strip. Of the 191, there were 26 complete sets (104 plates); the rest are all loose plates, none of them the black or key plate (explained below). My suspicion is that people perusing the thrift store bought some of the black plates, as they have most of the detail of the strip, as a bit of interest, leaving the other plates behind.
After many hours of scanning, clean-up, rotation, cropping, labeling, and linking, all
The Monotype Electro Type Matrix: 3D Model and 3D Print project I ran late last year at Kickstarter was a thorough success. The funds raised let me work through how best to scan, clean up, and print a 3D model of a historic artifact—in this case, the Monotype Electro Type Matrix—and produce a model that could be distributed for study and printing and mass produce replicas. Rewards went out a few weeks ago and I’ve shipped replicas to other people who have ordered them since. (You can purchase your own via this link.)
You can download the 3D printing files here in STL format: ampersand and capital letter N. These files are released under the Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED (Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International) with attribution to “Glenn Fleishman.” Please read the brief license agreement for
The shipping is now complete for the Monotype Electro Type Matrix: 3D Model and 3D Print Kickstarter project, and I’ve made the 3D printed matrices available for general purchase!
If you were part of the Kickstarter project and pledged at a reward level that included a physical reward, it was mailed to you yesterday or today.
I’m nearly at the fulfillment point of the Monotype Electro Type Matrix: 3D Model and 3D Print project I launched in November 2021. The goal of this project was to scan in 3D a historic type matrix, a mold used for mass production of type via hot-metal casting; produce a high-quality model for freely available distribution and use; and create 3D prints that people could own as replicas of the original. A couple of steps took longer than hoped, but the project is running about 3+ weeks behind when I started with an optimistic four-month delivery schedule. Items should be all mailed by the end of March. One batch of prints has arrived; the second should be in my hands in about 7 to 9 days.
I was also able to budget to scan two different matrices, increasing the historic and societal value of this project. People who backed
On this episode of the Tiny Typecast, we talk about indexes with the author of the book Index, a History of the, Dennis Duncan, and its indexer, Paula Clarke Bain. Modern indexes date back eight centuries, and Dennis’s book takes us from the beginning to the present. Paula has worked for over 15 years as a professional indexer and produced nearly 900 indexes. She explains her working methods and the value of an index to the reader—and as an element of a book’s appeal.
This episode is sponsored by my book Six Centuries of Type & Printing. Find out more about the book and read an excerpt.
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Dennis is a writer, translator, and lecturer in English at University College London, and the author also of Book Parts. He has appeared
Just days after writing up the third anniversary of the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule project on this blog, the final seven museums sold in a flurry of interest. The book, Six Centuries of Type & Printing, remains exquisite and fully available. You can order it here. Read an excerpt.
I sent the two 3D models off to Sculpteo to test what metal filament printing looks like, but the resolution and detail are too coarse. Still, an interesting test to make. More test prints off being made now in other materials.
With the help of a backer of the campaign, I connected with a 3D sculptor who was able to perform the finishing work necessary on the 3D scans. What a relief! (Literally: this are relief objects.)
Here’s what the cleaned up scans look like in a 3D printer’s slicing software.
I’ve proofed these scans on my personal 3D printer and have just sent them out to a service bureau to confirm they print as expected. Once I have those in hand and have finalized pricing, I’ll make pre-orders available for those who didn’t participate in the Kickstarter campaign.
An update on the Monotype Electro Display Matrix 3D Scanning and Printing project!
Everyone is busy, let me tell you that. I received two 3D scans of Electro Display Matrices back in November, printed and received service bureau 3D prints in December and talked with one of the scanners about brass casting, and then stalled through a combination of software trouble and busy 3D sculptors. (The former: AutoDesk Fusion 360 isn’t updated for Apple M1 processors, and the operations I need to refine the scans “beachball” the cursor; the latter: people with 3D skills are absolutely in high demand.)
But I hope to break the logjam soon, deliver the 3D model files that are part of the project, and then move into the 3D printing phase—and maybe some brass casting. Once I have the Kickstarter campaign fulfilled, I’ll often matrices for sale here as well.
Thanks to a few dozen people, my brief and modest campaign for creating a detailed model of a Monotype Electro Display Matrix and producing 3D prints—and widely distributing a digital 3D model file for study and reproduction—has funded just now!
I’ll be posting updates to the campaign over the next few weeks and months as it moves along in phases. I’ve already sent out two matrices, one to each of two 3D scanning/modeling firms, for them to create the preliminary model that I can use for testing and refinement, or, if lucky, for the final 3D print!
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Electrotyping was the 3D printing of its day. An electro-chemical process that deposited dissolved copper or other metals onto a prepared object, it effectively allowed creating exact duplicates of a page of type to create a durable printing plate, or to produce a mold (a “matrix”) from type punches or existing pieces of type. This allowed foundries to expand typeface production dramatically, allowing far easier creation of the master forms from which matrices were made—and enabled piracy.
In this episode of the Tiny Typecast, there’s no interview—just me reading a chapter on electrotyping, “A 19th Century 3D Printer,” from my book Six Centuries of Type & Printing. I picked this chapter as I am currently raising funds related to electrotyping on Kickstarter: I have an active campaign through 18 November 2021 to underwrite creating a detailed digital 3D model of a Monotype Electro Display Matrix, a mold