Flying Dutchman

What I know as a Flying Dutchman is this, thanks to Fred Williams of Type & Press:
Place your stock in position at the gauge pins. Mark the trailing side. Then cut a short section of the tympan at that side, and another at 90 degrees to it. This gives a leaf that tends to rise above tympan level, and prevents the stock from shifting away or bouncing back from the side gauge pin.
Your experience may vary.

First of all thank you very much, I think I now understand what you are talking about even though I would have been happy for a picture or illustration

The only thing I’d add is that you bend up the corner of the cut; the stock being fed slides over it, but it then raises so to be a stop against the side of the stock being fed. Or, you could also glue a piece on top of the tympan for the same effect, but you wouldn’t want it to foul your feeding. The more you have to think about your motions in feeding stock, the greater the possibility of error, and error in a hand-fed platen can be dangerous.

While the above descriptions are interesting, they are unfortunately wrong. The Flying Dutchman was a 17th century sailing ship…. equipped a full printing shop!

As far as I can determine, it had several Windmills…. obviously of the “Black Ball” variety. I’m not sure exactly how it became the legendary doomed vessel / portent of bad things to come, BUT my guess is that it had something to do with the introduction of Photolithography, and/or High Speed Photocopiers.

Anyway, to help you get a grasp of the whole situation, here is a pic of the famous ghost-ship, taken back in the 1970’s off the coast of Nantucket:

4-the-flying-dutchman.jpg

Winking Cat……I think you hit the nail on the head……mind you, I do appreciate Parallel Imp’s thoughts on it all…..very interesting and informative, all of it……

Here’s Fred Williams’ original article on the flying dutchman, care of APA:
http://www.apa-letterpress.com/T%20&%20P%20ARTICLES/Press%20&%20Presswor...
There’s a picture at the bottom.
APA also hosts a few other of Fred’s articles, link at top of the page.
Before the internet, Fred’s quarterly journal Type & Press was a major force to hold the community of existing letterpress printers together, and to educate the newcomers. It was Linotype-set and Little-Giant-printed. He is missed.

Great, thanks parallel

Was that a “drunk history” post?
More like “Drinking cat press”? lol

I’ve found the flying dutchman makeready very useful over the years, although I didn’t have a name for it till recently.
I find it really useful in die-cutting on my windmill. I cut a small square of card stock, tape it to the jacket, and then cut the notch. It solves the bouncing problem and allows for greater press speeds. Thanks for bringing up this topic again.

Hi H.P……

Not Drunken History…. more like temporary insanity, brought about by too many years of lead type, mineral spirits, and ink drier! ;) (or the tedium of hand feeding a zillion envelopes over a 50 yr period)

Actually, it’s called “humor”, which can be a difficult concept to the more serious minded among us. Sometimes we get so caught up in technique, intent on perfecting our craft, and all of that stuff that we forget to sit back and smell the oddity of some of our own terminology.