Schokmiller's Type Casters

1. Introduction

Charles H. Schokmiller was an important figure in late 19th century American typefounding. He made a pantograph engraving machine which was exported to Stephenson, Blake and made typecasting equipment to his own design for at least the Keystone and Western type foundries (and, I presume, for his own Laclede Type Foundry). He started up two type foundries (Western and Laclede), in each case with sufficient success to force ATF to buy him out. Yet by the time of his death in the late 1920s, he was remembered by few.

Nicholas J. Werner, in Werner, N. J. "St. Louis' Place on the Type-Founders' Map." The Inland Printer. Vol. 79, No. 5 (August 1927): 764-766. says that "Today the best hand power and electric power type-casting machines, aside from those automatically doing all the work (i.e., producing finished type) are those which were perfected in Saint Louis. At one time the Keystone Type Foundry, of Philadelphia, engaged Mr. [Charles H.] Schokmiller to superintend the construction of sixty of these machines for its plant, to replace its former machines, which went to the junk pile. Mr. Schokmiller also built one in St. Louis for a type founder in India." (766)

Little is known about his type casting machinery, but the machines he built for the Western Type Foundry seem to have been pivotal type casters of an unusual configuration. To date, the only more or less (more less than more) detailed information I have been able to discover about them is a single photograph which appeared in The American Printer in 1907 (see below).

I have been unable to discover any patents for any casting machines by Schokmiller.

Here's the photograph of the line of six casters, from the article above.

[click image to view larger]

In this photograph we can identify the following features, several of which are conventional for pivotal casters.

• A pivotal caster style melting pot, possibly insulated in a square jacket uniform with the pedestal
• A pivotal caster piston rod and pump spring, above the melting pot
• A pivotal caster style main cam shaft, with power drive (belts) on the left and hand crank on the right
• A mold oriented in the diagonal position conventional for pivotal casters
• A gas supply from above

Much of this machine looks unfamiliar, however.