Thread: Douglas printer's saw

Henry convinced me that I needed one of these:
IMG_2476.jpg

It is a small, accurate, table saw. Used by typesetters (compositors) to precision cut the metal frames that the metal type is pressed into.

The neat feature is that the sliding table is in two Vs with ball bearings - like the longitudinal slide on a surface grinder!
IMG_2475.jpg
Oh, and it has a grinding wheel on the side!

The base also has a chute for the cut metal shavings to fall into:
IMG_2477.jpg



I was lucky - found this on FaceBook Marketplace for free, and it has most of the original parts (and some spares from another saw). Needs thorough cleaning, and some belt guards to be setup. Only thing really missing seems to be the clamp that holds the metal in place when you cut it.


Now, what to use it for...

Patternmakers apparently like them for the accurate square cuts.
If I was a woodworker, it would be perfect for little squares of endgrain, like on butcher's blocks.

...but I think it will be perfect for the toolmaker, who is always cutting little blocks of Aluminium from long extrusions of 6061, to put in vices on the CNC, to shave away into something oddly shaped.

Last time I looked, there was one for sale in Atherton, but I don't need another machine.
Regards,
Crocy.
Well I went to insert the link, but it's finally been sold.

Great for cutting picture frames I payed a lot more than free for mine

Originally Posted by nigelpearson

It is a small, accurate, table saw. Used by typesetters (compositors) to precision cut the metal frames that the metal type is pressed into.

Just to clear up what these were used for. For hand composition which was assembling the type using individual letters the saw was used to cut the lead spacers between the lines of type. We used to get the spacing leads in stock lengths then cut them to specific lengths and they were stored in a special rack with the length marked on the rack.

Machine composition which I never did as a job just did it at tech and the occasional job if it was too big for hand composition used type cast in lengths straight off the machine. These could be cut to a needed length on the saw along with the spacing leads. If we did not have a lead in the rack it was standard practise to use a longer one and cut it to the desired length.

The frame you mention held the assembled type and was specific to the machine that was going to print the job. The assembled type was made to fit the frame, it was very heavy steel and had specific marks on it that indicated the area within the frame that we could work within. For the life of me I can't recall what it was called right now.

Thinking back, I was lucky as I only did my apprenticeship and Vietnam called though I never went there. When I returned to the work force there were no jobs and as I hated printing that suited me just fine.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

the saw was used to cut the lead spacers between the lines of type.

Aah. Thanks for the correction. I have only ever seen standardised spacers.

The frame you mention held the assembled type and was specific to the machine that was going to print the job. The assembled type was made to fit the frame, it was very heavy steel and had specific marks on it that indicated the area within the frame that we could work within. For the life of me I can't recall what it was called right now.

Ah, yes. The frame (frome) is the base, and then the galley? (a 3 sided tray?) fits in that.

Is it a composing stick that has the grooves in it, for either individual letters, or moulded hot type blocks?
And a number of sticks make a column in the galley?



I thought the galleys/sticks were also trimmed for specialised column widths.
e.g. when a client paid for a particular exact size of in-page advertisement,
and the text had to be laid up to fit around it!

The frame I could not remember the name of is called a chase. Putting the finished type into it was a bit like building a meccano set I suppose. In the hand composition world if the job was a regular one the chase came off the machine and all the ink was cleaned off the type, the type and all the stuff (furniture) that was in the frame to position it put back where it belongs to be used again, the type was then tied up with string and placed in a galley system where it could be stored and more importantly found when the job needed to be run again. Looking back I was one of the last hand comps trained in Sydney, hand and machine composition had taken over by then and most type was done by Linotype machines. This video shows it as it was and if you look in the background you can see the racks of leads (spacers) and other furniture used to put the type in the chase. I can remember putting a few days into a job only to have the whole lot fall on the floor and having to start again from scratch. I have no idea why anyone would voluntarily want to do the job and actually enjoy it but I see it from a very unhappy apprenticeship and in those days once indentured you did not leave until it was all over.

Originally Posted by nigelpearson

Aah. Thanks for the correction. I have only ever seen standardised spacers.


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Ah, yes. The frame (frome) is the base, and then the galley? (a 3 sided tray?) fits in that.

Is it a composing stick that has the grooves in it, for either individual letters, or moulded hot type blocks?
And a number of sticks make a column in the galley?



I thought the galleys/sticks were also trimmed for specialised column widths.
e.g. when a client paid for a particular exact size of in-page advertisement,
and the text had to be laid up to fit around it!

Your post crossed my reply above. The galley was a three sided steel tray and the perimeter of the stone had a rebate in it that matched the thickness of the galley precisely so a job could be slid on and off without having to pick it up which in some cases would have been impossible anyway. We had a big galley filing system which held all the jobs that were often called on. The stick had registration slots in it to give (in theory) the same measurement each time a dimension was selected. Mine was a very advanced one and it had a micro adjuster in it to adjust it within the major registration points.

Curious if the saw's mitre gauge is marked in pica or metric or something else. I remember reading about US printing saw conversions having graduations marked in the pica system.

Pete

Originally Posted by QC Inspector

Curious if the saw's mitre gauge is marked in pica or metric or something else. I remember reading about US printing saw conversions having graduations marked in the pica system.

Pete

They all used the printers system of measurement in Oz. The saws I used had a fine adjuster in them to allow for any deviation needed.

Thanks Chris I always wondered about that rebate on the edge of the stone.
I noticed a key for these expanding locking gadgets in your photos.
Can you enlighten us on their use.

I have a spare rolling table for a Douglas Nigel, do you want it?
I’m sure you could jig something up on it, possibly for variable angled cuts?
No use to me with a Hammond glider.
H.

Hi Clear out,

They are dropped into the edge of the galley to clamp the type in place !

EDIT: I said Galley, I should have said Chase ! Thanks Chris for the correction. See next post.

Originally Posted by BaronJ

Hi Clear out,

They are dropped into the edge of the galley to clamp the type in place !

Not quite but close. Looking at the still of the linked video the T handle key fits the quoin that is seen between his hands and it is expanded by using the key via (I presume) an internal wedge on a thread. The quoin is used to lock into place all the type and furniture into the chase. The chase is unique to each letterpress machine and can't be interchanged from one type of machine to another. Multiple quoins were used in each chase to lock everything into place. The expansion of the quoin was most probably about 5mm from memory so the internals had to be built via furniture to a pretty close tolerance via blocks of wood, lead blocks, spacing leads etc and two people doing the same job might do it in entirely different ways to arrive at a locked up chase.

Originally Posted by QC Inspector

Curious if the saw's mitre gauge is marked in pica or metric or something else.

I'm guessing Pica. It has no legend, but on 6, 12, 18 et c. there is a thicker line, so I'm guessing they are inches.

As Chris mentions, there is an adjuster screw (on the left hand side of the Gauge Bar) for fine tuning. On mine, it goes from 0 to 5, so I'm guessing that is sixths of a Pica?

(sixths of a sixth on an inch, so 36ths, or 2 points per division?)


The parts manual (thanks to an old post from Henry) almost shows a readable scale:
p7.jpg

It also mentions 64ems, 100ems, and Cicero. Ems confuse me. I've never heard of a Cicero!

Originally Posted by nigelpearson

I'm guessing Pica. It has no legend, but on 6, 12, 18 et c. there is a thicker line, so I'm guessing they are inches.

As Chris mentions, there is an adjuster screw (on the left hand side of the Gauge Bar) for fine tuning. On mine, it goes from 0 to 5, so I'm guessing that is sixths of a Pica?

(sixths of a sixth on an inch, so 36ths, or 2 points per division?)


The parts manual (thanks to an old post from Henry) almost shows a readable scale:
p7.jpg

It also mentions 64ems, 100ems, and Cicero. Ems confuse me. I've never heard of a Cicero!

You are now on your own, all that stuff has escaped my brain.

Mine is definitely pica, I would assume they all are.