At the age of 10, I first learned manual typesetting in the letterpress workshop of the local arts and community center MOTTE in Hamburg,in the evenings after school once or twice a week. When I was 12 a Linotype 4b moved in and I started to learn operating and fixing it. When I was about 16, I was allowed to use the printing presses, a hand fed Hohner gally platen and a Windmill. In 1997, as student work, I successfully put the Linotype Quadriga at the Museum der Arbeit in Hamburg into operation and demonstrated, including TTS. I found the Grafiska Museet in Helsingborg and became a (bord) member. I am working on getting a 1936 Intertype into better shape, it runs, but needs some love. And a I recently started a “remote” apprenticeship with Erich Hirsch at the Museum der Arbeit in Hamburg, learning their late model monotype with unit shift.
Other than Linoptypes (and Intertypes) where there is still a large number operating at various museums and private presses, operating Monotypes are spare, as there… Read More »Operating Monotypes and Monotype operators known to me (composition)
As a supplement to the 5th teaching day, I sat down at home and reconstructed some of the format settings for the table using the… Read More »Monotype, home work
My mentor Erich is a good teacher and he takes teaching me seriously. That implies giving me some theory lessons as well. Here I learned… Read More »Monotype, Theory
Disclaimer: I am learning all of this in German, and I have German books. So I might be wrong in translating some of the technical… Read More »Monotype apprenticeship, day 5
During the last day of the BuchDruckKunst 2023 convention at the Museum of Work in Hamburg-Barmbek, I had further opportunity to deepen my experience with… Read More »Monotype apprenticeship, day 4
Several months have passed since Erich Hirsch gave me my first introduction to the Monotype composition caster and keyboard. End of March I went to… Read More »Monotype apprenticeship, day 2-3
This week, together with my old friend and printing teacher Till Schröder, I visited Erich Hirsch at the Museum der Arbeit in Hamburg-Barmbek and got… Read More »Monotype apprenticeship, day 1
Today I was all by myself in the museum and had time for our 1936 Intertype. The quadder caused problems, the jaws were all but… Read More »Intertype autocentric