That’s all so fantastic!

I’m doing more research to see if I can nail down the wet-to-dry transition. Like a lot of printing history, “old” technology was used decades, sometimes a century, after new tech appeared, because the older stuff was cheap, they knew how to repair it, and they already owned it, so there was no capital investment. Wet flong could be made with basic stationery materials, while dry flong had to be purchased from factories that specialized in it and owned the market.

For smaller shops and “job work,” I imagine wet flong persisted for decades, until an older generation of printers or publishers had shifted out of the way, and newer workers and businesspeople wanted to upgrade. Wet flong was a very involved process and every print-shop foreman had his own secret formula of glue and methodology. It required trained and care. Dry flong was much much simpler.

As you’ve probably seen in YouTube videos, it’s almost hilariously fast from putting the dry flong in place, running it in the machine, and pulling out the matrix. Printers would do a little buildup on the empty parts, which was fast for experienced people, and then into the stereo-making machine it would go, and a plate would come out in moments. Just an incredible bit of industrial efficiency.