All about broken wood type
Hi, all! I’ve become interested in various aspects of broken wood type, and am curious about your general thoughts & practices around it.
1. What do you do with wood type when it breaks/is found broken? Immediately mend it, put it a dedicated spot intending to mend (then never do it), still print with it (while broken), discard it?
2. Are there examples of prints made with broken wood type you could share?
3. Beyond standard ways of putting broken wood type back together with adhesive—any experiences or readings on advanced mending, conservation, differences in breakage depending on types of wood or maker practices?
(P.S. I’ve started a little webpage & project on these questions—and am collecting broken bits of wood type, if you have any [in any condition!] you don’t want anymore: https://enthusiastictype.com/brokenwoodtype)
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Because most wood type was made on end-grain hardwood it is more vulnerable to breakage; my suggestion would be to rig up a clamping setup that holds the broken pieces in precise alignment, both foot to face and head to baseline as well as side to side - three C-clamps should suffice to achieve that, with blank waxed pieces of wood on all sides to hold the surfaces in alignment while the glue dries. Woodworkers’ PVA glue should be right for that, but you may want to wire-brush the broken surfaces (NOT the face!) to clean any crud off that would prevent the breaks from closing completely. I would also want to be sure any squeeze-out of glue gets wiped off immediately, especially on the face of the type, with a damp cloth; the glue is water-soluable.
This is great Amanda!
Personally, I prefer to keep it broken and print intriguing things that don’t try to hide its broken-ness.
For other projects, have you seen Myrna Keliher’s work?
https://expedition.press/collections/broken-studies
Best
David
AdLibPress: Thanks for this—helped me be ready to wipe off the extra squeezed out glue when I mended a piece recently.
DavidA: I had not seen Myrna’s work—thank you!
As was first stated - cramps and PVA glue works best. There is also a small journal post on the Letterpress Workers website about general maintenance / repair of wood type:
https://letterpressworkers.org/wood-type/
Hope this is of use.
Best wishes
Carl
@middletonbold thank you for writing & sharing it, what a perfect resource! (For future folks reading this, it’s got a great walkthrough of the various kinds of damage wood type can develop)