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.

by Thomas MacKellar

MAKING READY A FORM ON A HAND-PRESS.

Before a form is laid on the press, the pressman should carefully wipe the bottom of the type and the bed perfectly clean; for, if a particle of sand remain on it, it will cause a type or two to rise, and not only make a stronger impression, but probably injure the letters.

An octavo form should be laid on the press with the signature-page to the left hand, or nearest the platen; a duodecimo, or its combinations, with the signature at the right hand, or nearest the tympan. The form should be laid under the centre of the platen, and properly quoined up. The tympan is then laid down, and wet if necessary, and paper or blanket put in. It was formerly customary to wet the tympans for all works, and even jobs of almost every description; but, since the introduction of fine printing, and particularly iron presses, the custom is well-nigh banished, excepting for very heavy forms, composed with old letter, which, of course, require more softness to bring them off. After the inner tympan or drawer is put in, it is fastened with the hooks for that purpose, which serve to keep it from springing out. The tympan being lifted up, a sheet of the paper to be worked is folded in quarto, and the short crease is placed over the middle of the grooves of the short cross, if it lie in the centre of the form, as in octavo. In a form of twelves, the paper is folded in thirds, and the long crease placed in the middle of the long cross, and the short cross over the grooves. The sheet lying evenly on the form, the tympan is brought down, and a gentle pull will cause the paper to adhere, when it should be pasted to the tympan and fully stretched. The points are next screwed to the tympan, for large paper short-shanked points being used, and long-shanked for small paper. In twelves, the points must be placed at precisely equal distances from the edge of the paper. In octavo, the off-point may be a little larger than the near one, as it enables the pressman to detect a turned heap when working the reiteration or second side.

When a press is continued upon the same work, the quoins on the off-side of the bed may remain and serve as gauges for the succeeding forms; for, if the chases are equal in size, the register will be almost, if not quite, perfect.

The following operations are comprised in the term of making ready the form:—

1. The frisket should be covered with stout even paper, in the manner described for putting on parchment, the paper being carefully placed on the inside of the frame so as to lie close to the tympan, and to confine the sheet in its place when laid on for printing. When the paste is dry, the frisket is put on the tympan, and, after inking the form, an impression pulled upon it. The frisket is then taken off and laid on a board, or on the bank, and the impression of the pages cut out with a sharp knife about a Pica em larger than the page. After being replaced on the tympan, it is advisable to put a few cords across, to strengthen the bars of paper, and to keep the sheets close to the tympan. When the margin is too small to admit bars of paper, it is necessary to work with cords only.

2. The form should be examined, to see that it is properly locked up and planed down; that no letters or spaces lie in the white lines of the form, nor between the lines in leaded matter.

3. White pages which occur in a form must not be cut out; but, if the page be already cut out, a piece of paper must be pasted on the frisket, to cover the white page in the form, and a bearer put on to keep the adjoining pages from having too hard an impression. Some pressmen use reglets, others furniture cut to a proper height, and a third class adopt cork, which, from its elasticity, is very useful. Spring bearers, made of hard paper rolled up, are also employed to guard the sides and bottoms of light and open pages, when there is an inclination to slur.

4. The pressman must examine whether the frisket bites; that is, whether it keeps off the impression from any part of the pages.

5. He must consider whether the catch of the frisket stands either too far forward or backward: if forward, he may be much delayed by its falling down, and, if backward, it will come down too slowly, and thus retard the progress of the work and not unfrequently cause the sheet to slip out of its proper place. He must, therefore, place the catch so that the frisket may stand a little more than perpendicularly backward, that, when lightly tossed up, it may just stand, and not come back.

6. He must fit the gallows so that the tympan may stand as much toward an upright as he can; because it is the sooner let down upon the form and lifted up again. But yet he must not place it so upright as to prevent the white sheets of the paper from lying secure on the tympan.

7. The range of the paper-bank should not stand at right angles with the bed of the press; but the farther end of the bank should be placed so that the near side may make an angle of about seventy-five degrees with the near side of the bed.

8. The heap of paper should be set on the horse on the near end of the paper-bank, near the tympan, yet not touching it. The uppermost or outside sheet should be laid on the bank; and the pressman then takes four or five quires off his heap, and shakes them at each end, to loosen the sheets, till he finds he has sufficiently loosened or hollowed the heap. Then, with the nail of his right-hand thumb, he draws or slides forward the upper sheet, and two or three more commonly follow gradually with it, over the hither edge of the heap, to prepare those sheets ready for laying on the tympan.

9. He must next pull a revise sheet, which must be sent up to the overseer for a final revision, and for examining whether any letters have dropped out of the form in putting it on the press, &c.

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.