MWT at the Wayzgoose in Two Rivers

I just returned from four wonderful days of wood type at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. I made the trip to the Wayzgoose with my daughter Erin who is a designer and printer who teaches letterpress printing at Miami University.

We had printed together the week before the trip to create five different pica ruler specimen cards to exhibit my new wood ornaments, catchwords and historic stars. She pulled an all-nighter before the trip to print a beautiful poster full of “E” words and a special message for printers.

We flew into Milwaukee on Thursday morning to meet a good friend from Toronto, Don Black, who owns Don Black Linecasting. Don is one of the largest letterpress equipment and hot metal machine resellers in the printing field. He has rescued untold numbers of old print shops in Canada and the United States. Hundreds of printers have purchased their 1st press from Don and many others have purchased wood and metal type from his warehouse. Almost all the fonts used on the the five pica cards for the Wayzgoose had been purchased from Don Black (and a couple from Dave Churchman).

Arriving a day early, we got to spend some quality time in the museum during regular visiting hours. Don met many old friends, my daughter reunited with her friends who were volunteering at the Wayzgoose, and I got to spend some quality time with Norb Brylski who serves as the museum pantograph operator. He answered eight of my questions I had brought about wood type cutting, and gave me a slow motion demonstration on type trimming. The large pantograph I use to cut type is a replica of the pantograph used in Two Rivers.

Erin helps Dave Peat package his amazing door prizes

We met that first evening in a nearby town with Philip, the leading expert on wood type and borders from Australia, and several other well know printers from the United States. The Wayzgoose registration started Friday morning, with over 90 participants and supporting group of volunteers and museum staff.  (to be continued)