[CHAPTER IV]
THE NECESSARY TOOLS AND APPLIANCES
In lithography there is use for many various tools and utensils. I will mention here merely those that are made primarily and exclusively for the art.
I
CONCERNING STEEL PENS
One of the most necessary tools of lithography is the steel pen for writing and drawing on the stone. Simple as its manufacture is in principle, it demands much care and skill. The beauty of the work depends largely on a good and well-cut pen. The best artist, using the best chemical ink on a perfectly prepared plate, cannot do good work unless the pen is good and cut to suit his hand. Therefore it is necessary to learn how to make these pens, because, apart from their costliness, it is difficult to get a suitable one from a worker in steel. The ordinary steel pens that can be bought ready-made from stationers are fairly available for coarser writing and drawing; but for better work one must have much finer pens.
Following is the way to make them:—
Take the spring of a pocket watch, not too small nor too broad; one and a half to two lines in breadth is best. Clean off all fat by polishing with sand or chalk. Lay it in a glass or porcelain vessel, and cover it with a solution of aquafortis and water in equal parts. Let the acid etch the steel till it has lost about three fourths of its thickness, and has become as pliable as a similar strip of letter-paper. From time to time the steel must be removed from the fluid and dried with tissue paper. This produces uniformity of etching. The steel rarely is quite uniform, and it has happened to me often that it is attacked unequally and that holes are eaten into it before it has been etched away sufficiently. That this, however, is due mainly to the quality of the acid, I learned because I found that the same steel would be attacked clean and uniformly as soon as I obtained aquafortis from some other source.
A pen is poorly etched if it has many elevated points or pits and holes. The former appears to result from insufficient cleansing, the latter is due to the quality of the acid.
Oil of vitriol diluted with water, or nitric acid can be used.
Those who have a very light touch may etch their pens to great thinness, and will be enabled to do very delicate work. For a heavy touch they must be firmer, otherwise fine strokes will look shaky.
When the steel is thin enough, it is removed and cleansed with fine sand that it may not become rusty in future. Then it is cut into pieces two inches long with good English shears. Now these must be shaped half-round. To do this, lay them on a flat stone and beat them lengthwise till they bend, using a small watchmaker's hammer, whose faces are pretty thin but well rounded. Two or three sheets of paper laid under the steel facilitate the work.