The Springdale news., 1909-07-23
OUR LINOTYPE.


 appearing in this issue of The News having been east on the machine Although no one in the office knew anything about the mechanism or operation of the machine, it was put LID by the force and had been operated to some extent when the expert machinist, P F Harklotz arrived Friday morning from New Orleans and put on the finishing touches. The frame of the key board had been broken while in transit, and t was necessary to diseonneet all the wires and have same repaired before the machine would work, but this was done sue eessfully, therepairing being done by Springdale's skilled machinist, $. M. Graham Mir Harklotz compli- mented Mr Graham and the News something that many expert lino- type men would have hesitated at before tackling Mir Harklotz re- mained with us Friday and Satur- day, and since that time the ma chine has been operated by the reg ular office force, and so far no difficulty has been experienced.
 Contrary to the popular idea, this is not a type-setting machine, as it does away with the ordinary type The machine makes it's own type, and each line of type is mould ed into a solid slug--henee the name, linotype" These slugs are ready to print from as they are de- livered from the machine. The ma chine is operated by keyboard very similar to the keyboard of an ordinary typewriter By touching one of these keys lightly the letter, or more properly speaking, the mat rice, drops into the assembler where the line is formed Each maurice is formed Of brass plate on the lower end of steel band, and sunk into the brass of the lower end is the mold of the letter At the opposite end is | steel hook or loop by which it is suspended on it's own wire, and the end at which the maurice hangs is the highest, thus when the key is touched d matrie is released and slides by gravity on it's individual wire to the low est point The lower ends of all the matrices line up together, and to do this their length varies in conformity to the height of the wires upon which they slide When the line has been assembled the operator touches a lever, which puts the machinery in motion and the matrices are carried to the rear where Is located pot of melted metal and pump forces this metal into the matrices and immediately delivers line of perfectly formed type knives trimming it to the required height and thickness The
 
 ual wires. and after the line is cast, the machine carries them on around to the starting point While all this is taking place the operator has been assembline another line and thus the process is repeated. the capacity of the machine depending entirely on the speed and ability Of the operator After an operator becomes skilled in the use of the machine he can do as much as three compositors by hand Fay Stafford will operate the machine in this office, and although he had never seen one of the machines un- til last week. he cast two galleys-- about two and half eolumns--of type Tuesday afternoon
 The machine looks complicated, and is complicated to the unini- tiated, but when once understood is easily operated, but requiring care ful and intelligent attention. For
  it is just about as near 'fool-proof' as anything can be, as it is so con- strncted that the mechanism imme- diately stops when it becomes clog ged. or anything goes wrong.
 With the machine We have two sets of matrices. eight and ten point, this article being set with the eight point. Each set of matrices is provided with black-face letter in addition to the ordinary Roman, ana the operator has only to turn a lev CT to set d line of black-face type like this This letter is useful in setting the headings of different ar tieles and for ads. It requires only | moments time to change from eight to ten point type. The ma chine also casts borders dashes, etc. the border used in w. G. Own bey's ad in this issue having been cast on the machine