Calling all font experts...

[Jules Richardson]

Rather rough dial from a 1940's compression tester:

I figure I'll re-make it in Inkscape, but does anyone have a clue as to what fonts were used (or close modern equivalents)? I started looking at the numbers first as I figured that would be quite simple, but nothing I have installed already has a zero that's as narrow or slab-sided as the originals. The "Weidenhoff compression tester" text is pretty distinctive, of course.

I cleaned up the mechanism and it seems basically sound (there's a seal gone bad in the release valve, so it doesn't hold a reading right now), and it came with a metal case and loads of brass adapters - must have been worth quite a bit when it was new, but it's obviously been left in a damp environment for many years.

cheers

Jules

[Andy Burns]

Identifont suggests "Grotesque Bold"

[Jules Richardson]

The zero's close, but on the dial the '1' is just a vertical line (although I suppose it's possible they they used I,L,l from the same font to represent a 1). I only just found the identifont site though, so I'll have a prod at it myself too.

I've *seen* that letter 's' in the text above the needle before somewhere, but buggered if I can remember where!

The "Joseph Weidenhoff Inc" text is possibly just a bold (and slightly larger) version of the surrounding text (which in turn is possibly just a larger version of the font used below the needle) - they all seem to have rounded ends to the lines and the same character shapes/spacing.

cheers

Jules

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ah., Ive done more than a few of those in Corel draw for scale model engineers..Inkscape is shit by the way

Hint: pick the nearest font, get it in the right place and alignment and then convert to curves and tweak it.

[dennis]

That might just be a by product of screen printing.

[djc]

At that time is was probably hand-drawn rather than typeset so there may be no precise equivalent. I would suggest something like Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed would be the model.

If you want to reproduce it very closely perhaps import a good photo into Gimp and retouch it by cloning detail from the good bits.

[Jules Richardson]

True... did machines even exist at the time to lay text out on a curved path? I have no idea (plus, the text above the needle gives the appearance of being bent around the needle's axis - i.e. the tops of the letters are slightly wider than the bottoms, so I suppose that suggests that they at least were hand-drawn)

Hmm, that's wrong* for the numbers, but it is really close for the letters (with the exception that the 'Q' on the dial has a non-curly stroke and the 'G' has no descending stroke, but I can tweak that on the final design anyway). Looks like that might be my best bet - ta!

• although a condensed version, and possibly in bold, might be very close indeed, with the exception of the '1'.

It's certainly not the end of the world if it's not perfect, I just thought I'd make an effort to get it as close as I could if the right fonts are out there. :-)

Unfortunately there aren't a lot of good bits left! It seems like these testers do crop up every once in a while for sale online though, so maybe I can convince someone to take a close-up photo of a good one for me.

cheers

Jules

[The Natural Philosopher]

what are you doing this to achieve?

[damduck-egg]

Looks similar to the S on the logo used by Safeways Supermarkets at various times.

G.Harman

[mike]

Regarding the "Weidenhoff compression tester", some variation on Koloss perhaps? That font predates your gizmo by several years.

[Jules Richardson]

Just to see if I can get it back into a working state. I don't necessarily need to, and it only cost me a beer, but it's fun to try as long as the effort isn't too great :)

A condensed Franklin font (with capital 'i' in place of a '1') seems to have done the trick on the other text, so it's just a matter of doing the text above the needle - I've snagged a hi-res photo for that, and will have a go at tracing it (in conjunction with using someone else's picture of one that I found online for reference).

I suppose it would be possible to feed the inkscape doc into some kind of machine that could paint a new dial, but it's probably rather expensive - I'll just get a high quality printout done (& possibly laminate it), then overlay that over the old dial.

cheers

Jules

[The Natural Philosopher]

silkscreen

Find a silkscreener

respray or powder coat it, then three color sep onto the silkscreens and get it done pro wise.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Andy Burns escribió:

Ooh, bookmarked. Thanks. Some nice free fonts for download there

The 1 has a serif, whereas Jules' gauge uses a non-serif digit. He could use an upper case I or a lower case L though, whichever looks closer.

[Jules Richardson]

Oh, yes... I think that may well be it :)

As there wasn't much to do, and the text was 'projected' from a central point (the needle's axis), I ended up tracing them from a hi-res photo - current image (converted from the SVG) here:

Still a few tweaks to do, but I think I'm basically there. One thing I did find is that while 'WEIDENHOFF' follows a nice clean arc around the needle axis, 'COMPRESSION' beneath it doesn't - there's some distortion around the 'COM' (which seems to be present in all images of these testers that I've found online). I fixed it in my reworked version...

cheers

Jules

[Rick Hughes]

Screen print was probably used, these could be made using stencils (Letraset often used) or hand painted.

[The Natural Philosopher]

what yo doi was produce a black on whitea artwork - usually on white card - by either letraset or indian ink.

That was then photographed, touched up and the negative used to contract print onto photo sensitive resist on the sillk screen. Same method as making PCB's.