The Barth Type Caster

The Barth type casting machine was developed in the late 1880s by Ernst Lietze and Henry Barth of the Cincinnati Type Foundry. It was not an original design, but was based closely on earlier European machines of Foucher. In addition to its use at the Cincinnati, it saw initial limited use in other type foundries in the United States (including at least 13 machines to foundries which were not a part of the 1892 ATF amalgamation). After the amalgamation of American Type Founders (ATF) in 1892, it spread to the various constituent foundries of the firm. After the consolidation of the ATF manufacturing foundries into a single central plant in New Jersey it became the best known of the three kinds of type casting machines used at ATF (which include many different kinds of "pivotal" (aka "Bruce") type casters, the Ziegler-patent casters for spaces and quads, and the Barths). It was not sold by ATF to other American foundries, but it was exported by them and used on an extremely limited basis by some foundries in Europe (including Stephenson Blake in the 1930s). However, it is now primarily associated with its major role at ATF.

In addition to being an extraordinary engineering object in its own right, from a historical perspective the Barth Type Caster is one of the most important type casting machines ever made. It is often spoken of - and not without reason - with almost mythological awe.

In 2014, I was lucky enough to be able to acquire a Barth type caster: a No. 3 1/2 machine, equipped with a 60 point mold. My thanks to Gregory Jackson Walters (1953-2022), without whom this would have been impossible.

Initially I planned to approach this type caster as an ordinary machine rebuilding project, as is still the standard practice in this field. Additionally, I planned (and still intend) to document its operation for the first time. The operation of the Barth has been passed down as in an oral tradition for over a century, but that direct line is in danger of being lost.

However, the goals of my Barth Project changed soon after I began serious work on the machine when it became apparent to me that it was an ethical imperative to bring the philosophy and techniques of conservation, and in particular "restorative conservation," to this machine. Such ideas have heretofore been absent from, even alien to, all work with typecasting machinery. As a result, this project has expanded to become an initial case study in how to apply these ideas and techniques to a representative piece of old heavy industrial machinery.

Beyond all of this, however, it is my own goal to add to the restorative conservation of this machine another set of layers of documentation which will effectively capture the machine as a living engineering object. This, also, expands the relevance of this project from being just the restorative conservation of an individual machine to being a case study in full engineering rediscovery.

For a detailed discussion of the goals of this project, its context in prior practices in this field, and my hope to expand the scope of how we look at old machines, see the Notebook below on the Goals and Guidelines of this project.

For those too busy to read that, here is an abbreviated summary:

• To conserve this machine in full compliance with the accepted practices in the field of conservation, as defined in the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) Guidelines.
• To apply the additional techniques of "restorative conservation" to bring this machine back into operation and cast type. This has never before been done in the history of type machinery.
• To explore and document actual methods for the restorative conservation of an industrial machine designed to work in adverse conditions.
• To document for the first time the operation of this machine (heretofore a part of an oral tradition).
• To expand the goals of restorative conservation to include the rediscovery of the complete engineering (not social) history and state of this machine. This has never before been done, anywhere.

This present set of "Notebooks" collects in one location all of the information specific to this and other Barths, and it links to relevant Notebooks elsewhere on CircuitousRoot. After the Notebook on the Goals and Guidelines of this project, I'll present an informal Journal of experiences. Following that are the more formal Reports, intended to capture all of the information necessary for a conservator or curator. After that comes a large collection of information of all kinds presenting my research into this machine and the results of this project. These sections duplicate all information in the Reports, but present it in greater detail with all available backing information.

This Barth project is also a case study in my general attempts at the Reverse Engineering of Big Old Machines.