Tuesday 17 July 2012

The Mitre Cutter

  

   Another nice piece of equipment comes ‘home’! 
  This little hand, food, and occasionally small levels of alcohol operated machine will give us the ability to cut bevel edges so that boxes can be constructed around areas of type. Now, I don’t know how well this really happens. It has been said that prefect boxes of rules can only be made by using a block/plates. This means the rule is made in software these days. But I like the idea of printing using hand fitted rules that are slightly imperfect. Getting rules made in the first place will mean heavy packages from the US!
   It’s a really well build piece and after a bit of oil and some rubbing was working in top condition again! There is one about 30 kms from where we live, but no luck in trying to get it - so this one came from Idiana US  (I think). Shipping was twice the value of the machine. I love working with traditional ornaments and applying rules is a nice way of finishing a design. American industrial design in the early 20th century often looks clunky and over size casts but then when in use you find all the accuracy you need. It certainly works because here it still is maybe a century later.
  Still, its here no so away we go! I’m hoping to have a model small shop circa 50’s-60’s. I think that soon we will have a Ludlow machine ( a type castor) which will make our studio close to perfect. So there!

The scale on the straightedge is for rule length and the outer curved settings are for the number of sides (moving the cutting bevel).

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