[65] Johanne Gutenburg was a German printer. He invented movable types about the year of 1450.
But you fellows of to-day have all the best of it, for you can buy a printing outfit complete for $1.50 on up to anything you want to pay for it. After all is said and done though, you can get more real enjoyment out of a small self-inking press than you can out of a larger one. Not only is there a lot of fun in printing cards, etc., for yourself but there is money in it too, if you go about it the right way, but that is another story.[66]
[66] To make money out of job-printing on a small scale read Money Making for Boys by the present author and published by Dodd, Mead and Co., New York City.
Kinds of Printing Presses.
—There are two kinds of printing presses made and these are (1) hand inked presses, and (2) self-inking presses.
You can make a printing press out of wood but to do a good job you must have a press built of iron and properly machined, that is finished up, for to do good printing a good outfit is needed to begin with.
Small hand inked and self-inking presses are sold in the toy departments of nearly all stores at prices ranging from $1.50 to $5.00 and this will include a font of type. Many of these little presses are made which use type about half the length of regular type and if you get a press of this kind you will never know the real joy of printing.
The Parts of a Self-Inking Press.
—The Excelsior is the name of a small self-inking printing press that has been on the market for 50 years and it is a good one. The description of it which follows will fit any other model self-inking press just as well, for they are all built on the same principle.
There are seven chief parts to this press and these are (1) the body; (2) the type bed; (3) the platen; (4) the ink-roller carriage; (5) the ink table; (6) the chase, and (7) the handle, all of which are shown in [Fig. 63].