Metal type, electrotypes, engravings, and printers’ plates are always made seven-eighths of an inch high. When making a press always bear this in mind, and if necessary the pressure-plate can always be built up with hard paper to meet the face of the type if sufficient pressure is not had at first.
Type, spaces, quads, rule, blocks, ink, and a small roller can be purchased from any printer if there is not a printers’ stock house in the town where you live. If the printer is accommodating, he will answer all your questions about your printing-press, and help you with any details about which you are uncertain.
Stamping
Stamping, or the process of imprinting without the aid of a hand or power-press, is as old as the hills. Away back in the early ages the art of stamping was carried on by means of wooden or stone blocks, on the face of which characters, letters, and various other signs were engraved. Patterns or figures in colors were imprinted on fabrics, parchment, and leathers; and in some of the walls of the ruined houses in Pompeii and Herculaneum there are found well-preserved examples of the stamper’s art, where figures of a running pattern are repeated at regular intervals. Both oil and water-color pigments may be used for stamping; but if the imprint is to be made on paper or leather, then printers’ ink, diluted with a small portion of benzine, should be used.
Every boy may have an imprint of his initials cut on wood, and use it in stamping his papers, school-books, and other property. In the Far East every prominent merchant has his private signet, and always, when signing his name to documents, he certifies it with his stamp, which is placed beside or across the name, as shown in Fig. 13.
In China and Japan these stamps are called “chops,” and are used with a red, brown, or blue ink-paste, which dries hard and indelible on paper, leather, or soft wood.
The author’s imprint so interested a wealthy Japanese merchant a few years ago, that when he returned to Yokohama he had a handsome ivory, bone, and silver “chop” cut by a good maker in that city, and sent it over the sea as a souvenir of his visit to this country. Fig. 14 gives the imprint, and Fig. 15 is a drawing showing the shape of the “chop.” The body part is of ivory and the inlay of silver, while the cap, which fits over the engraved die, is of black bone.
Any boy can make a signet of boxwood or maple for stamping paper and wood. For use on leather he can cut his dies in soft copper, which, when heated, will burn the imprint in the leather.