The Invention of Printing.: A Collection of Facts and Opinions, Descriptive of Early Prints and Playing Cards, the Block-Books of the Fifteenth Century, the Legend of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the Work of John Gutenberg and His AssociatesDe Vinne, Theodore Low
History
The Invention of Printing.: A Collection of Facts and Opinions, Descriptive of Early Prints and Playing Cards, the Block-Books of the Fifteenth Century, the Legend of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the Work of John Gutenberg and His Associates
De Vinne, Theodore Low
Incunabula -- Bibliography; Printing -- History -- Origin and antecedents
Figures 2 and 3 represent the interior sides of the mould. For the
purpose of clearer illustration, the half of the mould, Figure 2, is
shown reversed, or upside down; but when this half is connected with
its mate, the two halves appear as they do in Figure 1. These two
halves differ from each other only in a few minor features. They are
so constructed that, when joined, the sides which determine the body
of the types are in exact parallel, and at a-fixed and unalterable
distance from each other. In Figure 2, the ridges which make the nicks
are noticeable; in Figure 3 the cast type is shown as it appears before
it is thrown from the mould, with jet attached.[12]
Although the two sides of the mould are fixed so as to be immovable in
the direction which determines the body of the type, they have great
freedom of motion and nicety of adjustment in the direction which
determines its width. They can be brought close together, so as to make
a hair space, or can be fixed wide apart, so as to cast a three-em
quadrat, but they always slide on broad and solid bearings, between
guides which keep them from getting out of square.
In the construction of the mould and adjustment of the matrices, every
care is taken to insure exactness of body. The illustration on page
52 may be again referred to as an example of the necessity for minute
accuracy. We there see that the feasibility of typography depends
upon the geometrical exactness of its tools, and that types are of no
practical use, if they cannot be readily combined and interchanged.
The casting or founding of types, in a mould constructed like that of
the engraving, is now accomplished by a complex machine, the invention
of Mr. David Bruce, Jr., of New-York city, and by him patented in the
year 1838. Before this date [p059] all types were cast by hand, from a
hand-mould, and by a process which received no noticeable improvement
for two centuries. The following illustration, taken from an engraving
published by an early English type-founder,[13] can be offered as a
substantially correct representation of the method of casting which was
practised by all type-founders in the first quarter of this century.
[Illustration: Type-Casting as Practised in 1683.
[From Moxon.]]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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