Making Ready.
—After you have the type, which is to make up the form, set in the chase on the imposing stone, or table, fill in the top and bottom spaces with long pieces of wood furniture and the ends with hollow metal furniture and then lock up the form, that is screw or otherwise fix it in the chase.
Now there are two kinds of chases used with small presses and these are (1) screw chases and (2) plain chases. A screw chase has a couple of screws fitted into the top of it so that after the type and furniture are in the chase you only need to tighten up the screws to hold the form in place.
Fig. 69. tools for locking up a chase
When a plain chase is used, quoins, that is wedges made of wood, as shown in [Fig. 69]—you can get a dozen hickory ones for a nickel—must be set in between the furniture and the chase and these are forced together with a mallet and a shooting stick, so that the type is held firmly in place.
The next thing to do is to plane the form, that is, you take a block of wood one side of which is covered with a piece of felt. Lay this on the type and tap it gently with the mallet to get all of the type even on top. You can make a planer or buy one for a quarter ready made.
This done, fit the chase in the press and put three or four sheets of paper on the platen by means of the pivoted bands on the edge of the latter. Ink the type and run off a few impressions; but be careful that the grippers are set so that they will just catch the edges of the sheet but will not strike the type form.
If part of the impression does not come out plain, paste a piece of paper on the paper backing on the platen and, oppositely, if a part of the impression is too heavy a bit of the under sheet of paper backing must be cut away.
When the impression is even on the platen sheet paste a piece of cardboard below and another to the left hand side of it so that the card or the sheet of paper will lay on the platen in exactly the right place every time you feed it in.