The Melbourne Museum of Printing boasts "one of the world's largest collections of preserved printing machinery and artefacts". Run by volunteers, the MMoP is the last producer of hand-set metal type in the country. JASON WALLS takes his camera into the museum for a journey into journalism's history.

Michael Isaachsen, curator of the Melbourne Museum of Printing, keys a sentence into the museum’s linotype machine.

A set of matrices produced by the linotype, which are used to form lead “slugs” of full sentences.

The linotype superseded manual typesetting, where sentences were formed by hand-selecting each letter individually using a composing stick.

The machine’s lead pot. When the linotype is switched on, the lead is heated until molten and then poured into a mould formed by the matrices to create the “slug”.

Isaachsen cleans a completed “slug”.

A half-finished sentence in a composing stick. l

Manual typesetters had to select each letter from a letter draw, a different one for each size, font, bold and italic.

A completed hand set “slug”.

Moveable type (pictured) printing is the oldest form of typesetting, superseded in the 19^th Century by the hot metal typesetting techniques demonstrated by Isaachsen.

The workshop in the rear of the museum, where visitors use the equipment to print their own posters, fliers and wedding invitations.

The museum is located at 266 Geelong Rd, West Footscray. It runs tours and printing workshops by appointment and is open to the public on Sundays and Thursdays from 2-6pm.