Kris Sowersbyklim
Sep 9, 2026, 3:28 AMIs it possible to cut text-size monotype machine mats these days?
Replies
Doug WilsononpaperwingsSep 9, 2026, 4:10 AM@klim Yes! The people at Typa in Estonia are doing this: https://typa.ee/en/exhibition/exhibition-artistic-rediscovery-of-the-hot-metal-typesetting/
Paweł showed me their 3D printed punch in person and it was amazingly good. Watch his talk: https://atypi.org/presentation/from-heritage-to-screen-type-centered-digital-tools-and-initiatives-in-printing-museum-setting/
- Doug WilsononpaperwingsSep 9, 2026, 4:13 AM
@klim To be clear: they are not yet to the point of creating matrices that they can print from, but they are getting damn close.
- Kris SowersbyklimSep 9, 2026, 7:27 PM
@onpaperwings Damn, awesome! What about Linotype mats? Anyone cracking that?
- Doug WilsononpaperwingsSep 9, 2026, 7:32 PM
@klim There was one person that I ran into at St. Bride's library in London that showed me a 3D printed Lino matrix, but they weren't as far developed in my opinion.
They were trying to skip the punch process, which I think is a mistake because the character “impression” needs the maximum precision. Which is where I think the Monotype Estonia people are on the right track.
Tiro TypeworksTiroTypeworksSep 9, 2026, 9:00 PM@onpaperwings @klim What material are they using for the 3D-printed punches? Steel punches were steel because they needed to be harder than the metal into which they would be struck.
- Doug WilsononpaperwingsSep 9, 2026, 9:03 PM
@TiroTypeworks @klim Not sure and IIRC, Paweł couldn't remember either at ATypI at Stanford. It was some sort of metal, but he said someone at the TYPA museum was the real metal-nerd. And yes, steel was used with brass because it had to be stronger/harder.
Kent LewkentlewSep 9, 2026, 1:19 PM@klim Seems like maybe a question for @metaltype ?
Sep 14, 2026, 8:11 AM@klim hey Klim. We are cutting our own punches. We are in fact already casting type with it. So far just one style (we are currently cutting Bold and Italic as well). We did not try Linotype mats. Happy to explain more if you have questions
- Kris SowersbyklimSep 15, 2026, 7:47 PM
@Pschulz Kia ora Paweł! I have watched your Atypi talk and read your article on Fontstand. You're doing important work.
How are you cutting your punches? How small can you go?
- Sep 16, 2026, 11:19 AM
@klim what we are cutting now is 12pt. This was the best test size. I believe we can go rather small, but will need to check with the CNC wizard at the museum to confirm how small. The other way around is more problematic - as you increase size you need stronger force to strike punches into brass. We cannot do supercaster sizes.
The process in short looks like this: I design typeface with monotype units. I export it to TTF and use a script I made to generate step models. Jörgen then makes gcode in cad. We cut the punch in hard steel with custom
CNC. Then the punch is struck into brass.Jörgen also build his own monotype interface so we build matrix layout directly there.