I us’d to make them of Sugar-Chest; That Stuff being commonly well-season’d, by the long lying of the Sugar in it, and is besides a fine hard Wood, and therefore less subject to be injured by the end of the Shooting-Stick when a Form is Unlocking.
Paper-Boards are made just like the Letter-Boards, though seldom so large, unless for great Work: Nor need such strict care be taken in making them so exactly smooth: their Office being only to set Heaps of Paper on, and to Press the Paper with.
§. 8. Of Furniture, Quoyns, Scabbord, &c.
By Furniture is meant the Head-sticks, Foot-sticks, Side-sticks, Gutter-sticks, Riglets, Scabbords and Quoyns.
Head-sticks and all other Furniture, except Scabbord, are made of dry Wainscot, that they may not shrink when the Form stands by; They are Quadrat high, straight, and of an equal thickness all the length: They are made of several thicknesses for several Works, viz. from a Brevier which serves for some Quarto’s to six or eight Pica thick, which is many times us’d to Folio’s: And many of the Head-sticks may also serve to make Inner Side-sticks of; for the Master-Printer provides them of lengths long enough for the Compositer to cut to convenient Scantlins or Lengths, they being commonly about a Yard long when they come from the Joyners. And Note, that the Head and Side-sicks are called Riglets, if they exceed not an English thick.
Outer Side-sticks and Foot-sticks marked C in Plate 2. are of the same heighth of the Head-sticks, viz. Quadrat high, and are by the Joyner cut to the given length, and to the breadth of the particular Pages that are to be Imposed: The Side-sticks are placed against the outer-side of the Page, and the Foot-sticks against the foot or bottom of the Page: The outer-sides of these Side and Foot-sticks are bevil’d or sloped from the further to the hither end.
Gutter-sticks marked D in Plate 2. are as the former, Quadrat high, and are used to set between Pages on either side the Crosses, as in Octavo’s, Twelves, Sixteens, and Forms upwards; They are made of an equal thickness their whole length, like Head-sticks; but they have a Groove, or Gutter laid on the upper-side of them, as well that the Water may drain away when the Form is Washed or Rinced, as that they should not Print, when through the tenderness of the Tinpan, the Plattin presses it and the Paper lower than ordinary.
Scabbord is that sort of Scale commonly sold by some Iron-mongers in Bundles; And of which, the Scabbords for Swords are made: The Compositer cuts it Quadrat high, and to his Length.
The Master-Printer is to provide both Thick and Thin Scabbord, that the Compositer may use either when different Bodied Letter happens in a Page, to justifie the Page to a true length; And also that the Press-man may chuse Thick or Thin to make truer Register, as shall be shewed in proper place.
Quoyns are also Quadrat high, and have one of their sides Bevil’d away to comply with the Bevil of the Side and Foot-sticks; they are of different Lengths, and different Breadths: The great Quoyns about three Inches square, except the Bevil on one side as aforesaid; and these sizes deminish downwards to an Inch and an half in length, and half an Inch in breadth.