Author:
Ralph Reinhold
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Date Posted: 18:37:35 11/26/14 Wed
When I was in 7th through 10th grade, my mother was a linotype operator in a weekly called the Necedah Marquee.
I usually was a general gofer between the time school let out and my mom was done. On Thursdays, that was usually pretty late. So, among my duties was to go across the street to a bar and get shorties on Thursday night. In those days, no one thought anything of a kid getting beer for his folks. In fact, one night, the town cop helped me haul it across the street. Well, that was what I thought at the time. Now, I know he was checking to make sure that was what I really was doing.
If the paper folder decided to have a bad day on Thursday, I folded papers along with the rest of them. If the stack on the end of the press misbehaved, then I was to remove each sheet and restack them on a large table (where they usually were stacked awaiting the folder) In fact all my duties on Thursday were to help the flow (including the beer).
Other than that, I was to clean the dog box (although I don't remember that name). We used kerosene, thought. I also skimmed the pot and poured the ingots. (I'm sure both were against the child labor laws.)
I often set small ads and poured more than one molded ad when the typesetter was busy. I didn't put away the broke down individual type, but put it in piles of each font. I think the last year, I was putting them away.
When I went to the Huntsville Times to place an ad one time, I mentioned that my mom had been a linotype operator. The salesman had to take me back to show me where they had one preserved. They also had a job press and and one of those chest of drawers type things that held the type trays.
Another place I stopped had one of those little things where you set the type before you placed it in the galley.
>
>>We have come a long way since the days of the
>>Linotype, but I can't help but wonder if we have lost
>>something in the process.
>>
>>-- wes
>>
>My first job in a print shop was in a letterpress
>shop. As a trainee helper one of my duties was
>cleaning the "dog box".
>
>When a printer finished a job the old forms with type
>had to be broken down and the hand set type cleaned
>and returned to the proper case ( you had to recognize
>which face with-out help). The used linotype slugs
>were called dog type and thrown in a box under the
>table that was called a dog box. To clean the dog box
>you gathered all of the slugs washed them with acetone
>to remove dried ink and other debris and then melted
>the lead type down in a crucible and poured new pigs
>in a cast iron mold. When cooled the pigs went to the
>linotype to be used for setting type. All of this was
>done with-out any protective equipment of any kind.
>The linotype operators sat at their machines for hours
>at a stretch breathing the fumes of molten lead coming
>off of the machine.
>
>The breathing of lead fumes by printers ( and painters
>) is why at one time the common saying was that all
>printers and painters were alcoholics. Research done
>in more recent times has shown that the ingestion of
>alcohol helped to relieve the symptoms of lead
>poisoning.
>
>While I would not want to forget how we used to do
>things and I'm proud that I experienced the old ways I
>have to say that I'm glad that I (and others) don't
>have to breathe the fumes of lead and all of the
>solvents that we used ( in cold type, hot type and
>offset)!
>
>An older journeyman told me when I started in the
>printing trades that you just had to accept that
>exposure as the price you paid for having a good
>paying job!
>
>Kirby
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