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
10. While the sheet is undergoing a revision, the pressman should
proceed to _make register_, if half-sheet-wise, which is done by pulling
a waste sheet, and turning it, (without inking, as the sheets may
afterward be used for _slip_ sheets,) being particular not to stretch
the point-holes in the least, or to draw the hand along the sheet in
leaving it. In making register, the points must be knocked up or down
in such a direction as will bring the first impression under the last,
knocking the point only half the distance apparent on the sheet. If
register cannot be made with the points, the difficulty must then be
either in the furniture, the length of the pages, or in the springing of
the cross-bars, from the forms being locked up by careless compositors,
who commence at one quarter of the form, and lock it up tightly, and so
go around, instead of gently tapping it at opposite sides till the whole
is equally tightened. In locking up a form, the quoins at the feet should
be gently struck first, to force up the pages and prevent their hanging;
but, in unlocking, the side quoins must be first slackened.
Altering the quoins will not make good register, when the compositor has
not made the white exactly equal between all the sides of the crosses.
The pressman, therefore, will ascertain which side has too much or too
little white, and, unlocking the form, will take out or put in as many
leads or reglets as will make good register.
PULLING.
In taking a sheet off the heap, the pressman places himself almost
straight before the near side of the tympan, but nimbly twists the upper
part of his body a little backward toward the heap, the better to see
that he takes but one sheet off. This he loosens from the rest of the
heap by drawing the back of the nail of his right thumb quickly over the
bottom part of the heap, and, receiving the near end of the sheet with
his left-hand fingers and thumb, catches it by the farther edge with his
right hand, about four inches from the upper corner of the sheet, and
brings it swiftly to the tympan: having the sheet thus in both his hands,
he lays the farther side and two extreme corners of the sheet down even
upon the farther side and extreme farther corners of the tympan-sheet. In
the reiteration, care should be taken to draw the thumb on the margin,
or between the gutters, to avoid smearing the sheet. The sheet being
properly laid on, he supports it in the centre by the fingers of the
left hand, while his right hand, being disengaged, is removed to the
back of the ear of the frisket, to bring it down upon the tympan, laying
at the same moment the tympan on the form. He then, with his left hand,
grasps the rounce, and quickly runs the form under the platen; and, after
pulling, he gives a quick and strong pressure upon the rounce, to run
the carriage out again. Letting go the rounce, he places the fingers of
his left hand toward the bottom of the tympan, to assist the right hand
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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