THE LINOTYPE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1404, 26 January 1899, Page 27

THE LINOTYPE.

AN EPOCH-MAKING MACHINE. Within the last year or so an important change has taken place in connection with the mechanical production of the city newspapers of New Zealand. In almost every case the old method of hand composition of movable types has been superseded by a machine system of type production. The supplanted method was merely an improvement on the method in use in China centuries upon centuries ago. The new method is not merely an improvement; it is a complete change. Where in a New Zealand city newspaper office, six or twelve months ago, large "companionships” of compositors stood at their "frames” and from their "cases” tediously set-up, or as tediously distributed the contents of a paper, at the present time selected staffs of operators, seated at very wonderful machines, rapidly turn out newly-moulded solid lines of type which perform the same

function as a line composed of a separate type for each letter, character, and space. This epoch-making machine is called the linotype. When Ottmar Mergenthaler, profiting by the attempts and suggestions of many men and many minds, invented the linotype, he showeu that he had realised that the secret of successful machine type-composing lay in the fact that the machine must not pick or choose and assemble type already made, but must mould new type in the order required for the performance of the work in hand, whether it were the printing of a newspaper, a book, or a pamphlet. He therefore departed from the path trodden hard by scores of men who had sought to invent effective type-setting machines pure and simple. In his machine a key-board action brings into line matrices from which a solicl " line-o’-type ”is cast. Hence the name given to the ms chine. It is only 13 vears since the first linotvpe was erected in the office of the "New York Tribune.” Since then the machine has revolutionised the news- and book-printing world. Much has been heard of other machines, but the number of linotypes in actual use increases every week. For the production of its journals the "New Zealand Times” Company recently purchased five linotypes from the Linotype Company, Limited, of London and Manchester. The machines were erected by Mr William Holmes, of that company.

MECHANICAL PRODUCTION OP TYPE MATTER. As already indicated, the linotype is not a type-setting machine in the ordinary sense of the word. Even to call it a typeproducing machine is not an adequate description. It is more than that. It produces type in such a form and such an order that it may at once be printed from. Briefly, it produces immediately useable type matter. With a linotype machine, a man of moderate skill, by merely touching

keys (and moving a small lever every few seconds), can produce results which are a combination of type-founding and typesetting, and which are equivalent to a fresh daily supply of new type. It is in some respects the most wonderful piece of automatic machinery yet invented. THE LINOTYPE DESCRIBED. An account of this Yv'onderful machine, couched in plain language and illustrated pictorially, will be of interest to our readers. The machine, which is shown in Fig. 1, produces and assembles side by side metal bars, as shown in Fig. 2, each the length and width of a line of ordinary type, and having on (he upper edge the type characters to print an entire line. These solid lines of type are called " linotypes.” When asso.: bled side by side, as shown in Fig. 3, tlie.c constitute jointly a "form” composed of ordinary type, and adapted to be used in the same manner. After being used, the linotypes are returned to the melting pot to be re-cast into other lines, thus doing away with distribution. The process by which the linotypes are produced may be easily understood by a reference to the illustrations and the following description : —The machine is mainly constructed or iron. It has a magazine, marked A in Fig. 6, of brass, and divided into a number of narrow channels or compartments. In these channels the letters (Fig. 4) aro stored, but these are not of the same form as the old type. They are engraved on the vertical edge of a flat brass plate, having at its upper end a series of teeth (b). the function of which, a very important one, will be described later on. The letter itself (a) is sunken instead of raised, and is known as a female letter or matrix. There are a number of letters for each character represented on the key board. The mouths of the channels in the magazine are closed by an escapement, which is worked by the key-board, as shown (D) in Fig. 6. The printer sits in front r,f the key-board, which resembles Hot of an ordinary typewriter, each key being marked with

a letter. The printer strikes whatever letter he requires. The effect of striking is to open the mouth of the channel (B) containing the letter required, which slides out of the inclined magazine by its own weight and along the channels (E), and is carried by a travelling belt (F) into an assembling block (G), which replaces the composing-stick of the old process of typesetting. The letter is here arranged mechanically into line with others similarly

released. Thq' spaces (I) fire wedgeshaped, and are stored separately in a stationary box (II). They are liberated by striking the space bar (J) attached to the keyboard, the operator striking such letters and spaces on the keyboard as aro necessary to set up the text of his "copy” until he gets a line of the width lie requires, or as near that width as he can

without any bad division of a word. If the line is too short to be fully spaced by the automatic forcing up of the wedgeshaped spaces, he strikes keys representing spaces of various sizes in the magazine, and, removing these spaces by band, he extends the line by putting these spaces between the words in precisely the same way as he would "justify” an ordinary line of type in his composing-stick. The operator then moves a bar or iron handle,which is placed close beside the keyboard, and his share of the setting up and casting of the line of type may be said to end here. When set up the line of female type which is to form the matrix of the linotype face inwards, away from the compositor, but he is enabled to read and correct his line by means of corresponding characters engraved on the edges of the brass plates that are turned towards him.

Having don© this, if he thinks it necessary, and moved the handle which sets the automatic stereotyping and distributing mechanism in motion, the compositor at once proceeds to set up another line. The mechanism, which is set in motion by the handle, carries the line in front of a mould wheel shown in Figs. 6 and 7, where the line i 3 cast. This operation is illustrated in detail in Fig. 7. The metal (M), kept in a molten state by a gas-jet, is forced by a plunger (0) into a slot or mould, against which the line is securely locked, forming a solid bar oy line of type. After the linotype is thus produced the mould Wheel makes a partial revolution, turning

th© mould slot from the horizontal position in which it stood during the casting operation to the vertical position shown in Fig. 8. While the mould stands in this position a horizontal ejector advances from the rear and pushes the linotype forward out of the mould and between trimming knives into the receiving galley on the front of the machine. A vibrating arm advances the linotypes one after the other along the galley, into which they are thus assembled side by side in column form, as shown in Fig. 8; they are then ready for the press like ordinary type. The return of the letters to their proper

rives over its proper channel, where the arrangement of teeth permits it to become disengaged, so that it falls directly into the channel.

places in the magazine, to be used over again, is perhaps the most ingenious and striking part of the entire operation. After the casting operation, the line is lifted vertically, as indicated by the dotted lines in Fig. 6, and then shifted laterally. An iron arm with a toothed plate (R), which acts like a human hand, swoops down upon it from the back of the machine, and, grasping the line, raises it, as indicated by the dotted lines, to the distributing apparatus at the top of the magazine. The spaces remain behind, and are transferred ' mechanically to their box (H), to be used again. Reference has already been made t ) the teeth on the brass plate upon which the sunken letter or matrix is engraved,

These teeth (b) differ upon every elate—they are subject to as many variations as the wards of a lock—and these differences are relied upon as the means for effecting distribution. As shown in Fig. 6, a rigid metal bar (T) is fixed in position above the open upper ends of the magazine channels, and is formed at its lower edge with longitudinal teeth oi* ribs adapted to engage the teeth of the letters or matrices, and hold the latter in suspension. The ribs of the distributor bar vary in number and arrangement at different points of its length, there being a special arrangement over the mouth of each channel of the magazine. The letters to be distributed are simply pushed horizontally along the bar at one end, so as to hang suspended therefrom, and then are moved by endless screws (U) slowly along the bar over the mouths of the channels. It is a curious sight to watch the letters travelling along the distributing bar and dropping one by one into their right compartments in the magazine as if they were directed there by some hidden intelligence. Owing to the construction of the teeth and the grooving of the bar, a letter cannot become disengaged from the bar until it ar-