Joseph Moxon

“ For Italick Punches are not all to be Forged with their sides square to one another, as the Romans are; but only the highest and lowest sides must stand in Line with the highest and lowest sides of the Roman; but the Right and Left-Hand sides stand not parallel to the Stems of the Roman, but must make an Angle of 20 Degrees with the Roman Stems: so that the Figure of the Face of the Punch will become a Rhomboides, as it is called by Geometricians, and the Figure of this Face is the Slope that the Italick Letters have from the Roman, as in proper place shall be further shewed. ”

“ And though one Dressing-Knife may serve to both these uses: Yet when Work-men are in a Train of Work they begrutch the very turning the Body about, or stepping one step forward or backward; accounting that it puts them out of their Train, and hinders their riddance of Work.
5. For every Body of Letter he is to have a particular Plow, and the Tooth of the Iron of each Plow is to be made exactly to a set bigness, the measure of which bigness is to be taken from the size of the Break that is to be Plowed away. ”

“ First The Master-Printer, who is as the Soul of Printing; and all the Work-men as members of the Body governed by that Soul subserveient to him; for the Letter-Cutter would Cut no Letters, the Founder not sinck the Matrices, or Cast and Dress the Letters, the Smith and Joyner not make the Press and other Utensils for Printing, the Compositer not Compose the Letters, the Correcter not read Proves, the Press-man not work the Forms off at the Press, or the Inck-maker make Inck to work them with, but by Orders from the Master-Printer. ”

“ In the Plate of the Register, is made a long square Hole, as at e, just wide enough to receive the Pin of a Male-screw, with a Sholder to it, which is to fit into a Female-screw, made in the Edge of the Carriage, that when the Male-screw is turned about in the Female-screw in the Carriage, it shall draw the Sholder of the said Male-screw hard against the upper and under Sides of the square Hole in the Plate of the Register, close to the side of the Carriage and Body. ”

“ To know which of them it is that Rides, or is extuberant, he uses the Liner; applying it to both the Places, as well of the Body as the Carriage: where he sees they have Rub’d or bore upon one another: And which of them that is extuberant, the Edge of the Liner will shew, by Riding upon it: And that part he Files upon with a small flat and very fine File, by little and little, taking off the extuberancy, till the Bodies and Carriages lie exactly flat upon, and close to one another: Which if they do not, the Mold will be sure to Rag. ”

“ But for smaller Bodies; as English, and downwards, the Letter-Cutter generally, both for Romans and Italicks, gets so many square Rods of Steel, Forged out of about two or three Foot in Length, as may serve his purpose; which Rods he elects as near his Body and Sizes as his Judgment will serve him to do; and with the edge of a Half-round File, or a Cold-Chissel, cuts them into so many Lengths as he wants Punches. ”

“ One hundred and fifty Nomparels to make one Foot, gives twelve and an half Nomparels for an Inch, and consequently twenty five Scabbords for an Inch; so by proportion, fifteen Scabbords and one third part of a Scabbord, gives five eighth parts of an Inch, and a very small matter more, which is just so much as the Toe of the Spindle comes down in a quarter of a Revolution. ”

“ Every Mold is made of two parts, an under, and an upper Part; the under part is delineated at A, in Plate 18, the upper part is marked B, in Plate 19, and is in all respects made like the under part, excepting the Stool behind, and the Bow, or Spring also behind; and excepting a small roundish Wyer between the Body and Carriage, near the Break, where the under part hath a small rounding Groove made in the Body. This Wyer, or rather Half-Wyer in the upper part makes the Nick in the Shank of the Letter, when part of it is received into the Grove in the under part. ”

“ That our Neighbours the Hollanders who exhibit Patterns of good Printing to all the World, are careful and industrious in all the circumstances of good Printing, is very notorious to all Book-men; yet should they content themselves with such Inck as we do, their Work would appear notwithstanding the other circumstances they observe, far less graceful than it does, as well as ours would appear more beautiful if we used such Inck as they do: for there is many Reasons, considering how the Inck is made with us and with them, why their Inck must needs be better than ours. ”

“ Some are n thick; that is to say, n Quadrat thick, viz. half so thick as the Body is high: And some are Space thick; that is, one quarter so thick as the Body is high; though Spaces are seldom Cast so thick, as shall be shewed when we come to Casting: and therefore, for distinction sake, we shall call these Spaces, Thick Spaces.
The first three Sizes fit exactly in Heighth to all the Letters of the same Body; but the last three Sizes fit not exactly in Thickness to the Letters of the same Body ”

“ Matrices least the bottom line of a Page Beard. Yet though they be deep sunk, His care ought to be to see the Beard also well cut off by the Founder.
And a Fourth Care in the choice of Letter is, That his Letter be Cast upon good Mettal, that it may last the longer.
Of each Body he provides a Fount suitable to such sorts of Work as he designs to do; But he provides not an equal weight of every Fount; Because all these Bodies are not in equal use: For the Long-Primmer, Pica and English are the Bodies that are generally most used ”

“ It sometimes happens through the unskilfulness of the Joyner, (for they commonly, but unproperly, imploy Joyners to make them) that a Length shall be hollow in the middle both on the Face and Foot, and shall run driving higher and higher towards both ends: Hence it comes to pass, that when the Compositer cuts a piece of Rule to his intended Length, the Rule shall Print hard at one end, and the other shall not Print at all; So that he shall be forced to knock up the foot of the low end, as shall be shewn in its proper place. ”

“ He is careful to keep his Gravers and Sculptors always Sharp, by often Sharpning them on the Oyl-Stone, which for that purpose he keeps ready at hand, standing on the Bench: For if a Graver or Sculptor be not sharp, it will neither make riddance, or Cut smooth; but instead of Cutting off a small Extuberancy, it will rather stick at it, and dig into the Side of the Stroak. ”

“ He also tries if the two sides of the Body are parallel, viz. That the Body be no bigger at the Head than at the Foot; and that he tries by taking half the number of his Proofs, and turning the Heads of them lays them upon the other half of his Proofs, so that if then the Heads and Feet be exactly even upon each other, and that the Heads and Feet neither drive out, nor get in, (Founders and Printers Language, for which see the Table) the two sides of the Body are parallel; but if either the Head or Foot drives out, the two sides of the Body are not parallel, and must therefore be mended. ”

“ If the Letter be a small Body, it requires a Harder Shake than a great Body does: Or if it be a thin Letter though of a greater Body, especially [Pg 175] small i, being a thin Letter its Tittle will hardly Come; So that sometimes the Caster is forced to put a little Block-Tin into his Mettal, which makes the Mettal Thinner, and consequently have a freer flux to the Face of the Matrice.
2. He often examines the Registers of the Mold, by often Rubbing a Cast Letter: For notwithstanding the Registers were carefully Justified before, and hard screwed up ”

“ Fourthly, When for want of a Caldron the Master-Printer makes Varnish in a Kettle, He provides a great piece of thick Canvass, big enough when three or four double to cover the Kettle, and also to hang half round the sides of the Kettle: This Canvass (to make it more soluble) is wet in Water, and the Water well wrung out again, so that the Canvass remains only moist: Its use is to throw flat over the Mouth of the Kettle when the Oyl is Burning, to keep the smoak in, that it may stifle the Flame when they see cause to put it out. ”

“ Fifthly, Because Blacking is dear, and adds little to the weight of Inck, they stint themselves to a quantity which they exceed not; so that sometimes the Inck proves so unsufferable Pale, that the Press-man is forc’d to Rub in more Blacking upon the Block; yet this he is often so loth to do, that he will rather hazard the content the Colour shall give, than take the pains to amend it: satisfying himself that he can lay the blame upon the Inck-maker. ”

“ But if the Oyl be Hot enough, and they intend to put any Rosin in, the quantity is to every Gallon of Oyl half a Pound, or rarely a whole Pound. The Rosin they beat small in a Mortar, and with an Iron Ladle, or else by an Handful at a time strew it in gently into the Oyl lest it make the Scum rise too fast; but every Ladle-full or Handful they put in so leasurely after one another, that the first must be wholly dissolv’d before they put any more in ”