The American Printer: A Manual of Typography: Containing practical directions for managing all departments of a printing office, as well as complete instructions for apprentices; with several useful tables, numerous schemes for imposing forms in every variety, hints to authors, etc.MacKellar, Thomas
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The American Printer: A Manual of Typography: Containing practical directions for managing all departments of a printing office, as well as complete instructions for apprentices; with several useful tables, numerous schemes for imposing forms in every variety, hints to authors, etc.
MacKellar, Thomas
Graphic design (Typography); Printing -- United States -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.; Printing industry -- United States
He then takes a quire by the centre of the back with his right hand, and
the edge of it in his left, and, closing his hands a little, that the
quire may bend downward between his hands, he dips the back of the quire
into the left-hand side of the trough, and, relinquishing his hold with
the left hand, draws the quire briskly through the water with his right.
As the quire comes out, he quickly catches the edge of it again in his
left hand, and brings it to the heap, and, by lifting his left hand,
bears the under side of the quire off the paper previously laid down,
till he has placed the quire in an even position; if the paper be weak
and spongy, he draws the quire through the water quickly; if strong and
stubborn, slowly. To place the quire in an even position, he lays the
back of it exactly upon the open crease of the former, and then lets the
side of the quire in his left hand fall flat down upon the heap, and,
discharging his right hand, brings it to the edge of the quire, and, with
the assistance of his left thumb, still in its first position, opens or
divides either a third or a half of the quire, according to the quality
of the paper; then, spreading the fingers of his right hand as much as he
can through the length of the quire, turns over his opened division of it
upon his right-hand side of the heap.
A different process must be used in the wetting of drawing and plate
papers. These papers are usually sent in quite flat; that is, not folded
into quires or half-quires. The best method of wetting these papers is to
use a brush, such as is called a banister brush; and, instead of dipping
the paper into the trough, he lays it on the paper-board by the side of
the trough, and, dipping the brush into the water, he shakes it gently
over the whole surface, to give an equal degree of moisture to all parts;
and then proceeds as before described. The drawing-paper, being very
hard-sized in the making, will require the brush, and much water, three,
four, or even five times a quire; while the plate-paper should have as
little water as it is possible to give it, so as to cover it all over;
and twice a quire will often be too much. This same mode must also be
adopted in wetting paper of extraordinary dimensions.
Having wet his first token, he doubles down a corner of the upper sheet
of it on his right hand, so that the farther corner may be a little
toward the left of the crease in the middle of the heap, and the other
corner may hang out on the near side of the heap about an inch and a
half. This sheet is called the _token-sheet_, being a mark for the
pressman, when he is at work, to show how many tokens of that heap are
worked off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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