[GreenKeys] new keys

[dmm at lemur.com]

No, don't get your hopes up.  No new TTY keys, yet.  Rather, I've
run across something which might be of interest should anyone
contemplate making new keys.

An amateur printer in Iowa, Michael Langford, is now in the final
stages of putting brand new Linotype keys into production.
These are single-part plastic keys (nothing as fancy as the spring-
loaded TTY Model 15 keys).  He had a die made for them (in China)
and is having them injection-molded for him there.  He's engraving
them at home with a small CNC mill.  At present he's working on the
fine points of backfilling the engraving with color for contrast.

He sent me a pre-prodution set today, and of course I just had to
try them out (on several different machines).  The results are here:

http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/compline/literature/individ
uals/langford/index.html

(in the second section; the first section contains his CAD models,
which he's kindly shared).

I am not privy to his actual costs, but they're such that he is able
to pursue this on what is essentially a (serious) hobby budget
and propose to sell them for a quite reasonable price (he plans to
ask $100 for a 90-key set or $1.50 for an individual key).

This suggests that for a sufficiently motivated enthusiast, the making
of plain plastic keys on a production basis is now feasible.



BTW, in a semi-related vein, another Linotype enthusiast has reverse-engineered
an important but heavy-wear Linotype component, the "star wheel,"
and produced it via 3-D printing in ABS plastic.
Not sure if there is a TTY application here, as I don't think the process
has the precision required for, say, gearing, but it is interesting.

Here are his photos of them:
https://plus.google.com/photos/106519088708615289478/albums/5868602922072705745

and my hosting of his CAD models for them:
http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/compline/literature/individ
uals/turpin/index.html


Regards,
David M.
===
Dr. David M. MacMillan  -  dmm at lemur.com

   The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
       - Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915); Aldo Leopold

www.CircuitousRoot.com   *  www.LemurType.com   *  www.Lemur.com