Raymond Stanley Nelson, Jr.

Stan Nelson, formerly of the Smithsonian, is a punchcutter, mold maker, and type founder. He is probably the greatest living authority on the type founder's hand mold.

References on CircuitousRoot:

Nelson, Stan. "Mould Making, Matrix Fitting, and Hand Casting." Visible Language, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter, 1985): 106-120. This article, reprinted with Stan's kind permission, remains the best source in English for information on the construction of the 18th century French-style type founder's hand mold.

On making brass matrices from lead intermediate strikes, in the chapter "Early Methods for Large Matrices", in the CircuitousRoot "book" Making Matrices . This includes a photograph that I took of a stunningly beautiful display case with a 72 point punch and a set of matrices and types illustrating a reconstruction of an early method of making very large matrices by hand.

Saxe, Stephen O. "Following Isaiah Thomas: Casting Sorts in a Composing Stick." The APHA [American Printing History Association] Newsletter. No. 78 (July/August 1987): 1-2. This is an illustrated account by Saxe of Stan Nelson's method of improvised type casting using a (metal) composing stick for most of the mold.

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