IMPORTANT: I designed this hand mold several years ago just as I was coming to understand hand molds. I have not built it as a physical object. There isn't a chance that it contains errors: there is a certainty that it does. The typefounder's hand mold is simple but subtle. Please do not just hand this off to a machinist and expect it to work; it won't. You would be better off taking it as a model for your own original work.
This is a newly drawn/modeled non-lever ("plain") typefounder's hand mold. It is relatively "generic," and of traditional construction. It is designed for use with a traditional hand mold style of matrix. Its depth of drive is 0.050, it has the American/English nick position, and it is for 24 point body type. It is of what I'm calling the "composite" style of construction - that is, it is built upon a base plate like a French-style mold, but employs "wings" like a German-style mold (vs. the potence, or "male gauge," of French-style molds). This "composite" style seems to have been relatively common in Anglo-American practice, and makes a lot of sense from the point of view of construction.
NOTE: This model is not complete. It is missing all of the screws, and the 2-D dimensioned drawings for it aren't done.
This mold is Open Source Hardware. See the Notebook on Open Source Hardware on CircuitousRoot for further details.
I'm developing this model in the "Onshape" CAD environment. To view it interactively and/or access the source, first establish a (free or paid, at your discretion) account with Onshape ( http://www.onshape.com/). Then search the Onshape public model space (not the website, but the model space) for: HMB Hand Mold B
I last touched this project in 2019. Here is the incomplete writeup as of then:
Here are some images of it (all of which appear in the writeup):
Finally, here are PDFs of the engineering drawings:
The physical object, "MBA: Matrix Box A," described here is Open Source Hardware. See the Notebook on Open Source Hardware on CircuitousRoot for further details.
All portions of this document not noted otherwise are Copyright © 2015, 2023 by David M. MacMillan.
Circuitous Root is a Registered Trademark of David M. MacMillan.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons "Attribution - ShareAlike" license, version 4.0 International. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ for its terms.
Presented originally by Circuitous Root®
