[David Dunlop]

The current owner of this beast was kind enough to lend it to me yesterday so I can cut the six stencils I need so far for the 52-Set Project. Two small bundles of Oil Boards were also made available. The original plan was for me to work at the owner’s location but we realized that would have involved me having to take all the items needing stencils to the machine location to properly space/size/fit each stencil board. It made more sense to get the machine to my place, do the work and return it. That was an interesting exercise.

After a quick basic lesson on how the cutter works, I was able to get the car up to a large overhead door and load the cutter safely into the trunk. It looks innocent enough sitting on my work desk now, but trust me, that 15”W x 21”D x 12”H cast iron mass weighs every ounce of its rated 55 pounds once you have humped it out of the car, 40 feet to the house, down a flight of 11 stairs and across a finished basement to your work shop, without seeing what your feet are doing. The local gym has nothing on that workout!

From what I have read last evening, Diagraph and Marsh are the two sole players in the manual stencil cutting machine business, with Diagraph being the first out of the gate over 100 years ago. There must have been a lot of Patent Licence Dancing going on as both company products are alarmingly similar in looks and operation, and the resulting stencils from both machines would be comfortably interchangeable, assuming both machines were similar vintage. Newer machines from both companies have adopted slightly softer edges to their fonts than were present back in the 1940’s and 1950’s, and the difference is readably noticeable when the two fonts are side by side.

The Oil Board is critical to the long-term good operation of these cutters. There is a central oiling point in the middle of the large Character Wheel. A few drops every couple of years keeps all the mechanical bits in good lube and functioning smoothly and it needs to be cleaned of accumulated dust every couple of months but none of this deals with the cutting die sets. All of these rely solely on the Oil Board to keep their cutting edges lubed and sharp. If one tries cutting standard stationary paper or manila to save money on Oil Board, the cutting dies will plug up with dust, jamb and wear out. The Oil Board is also intended to be an easily cleaned surface once you have finished working with the stencils, so you do not constantly have to recut new stencils.

I will report more as I work through the stencils I need to make this week.



David