Handicraft for boys

If there ever was a boy who did not want a printing press I have yet to meet him. Ever since the day when Gutenburg[65] invented movable types, and that was some 500 years ago, every boy—and not a few men—have wanted to set a few stickfuls of type and run off some impressions on a press, and many thousands of them have gratified that highly civilized ambition.

But you fellows of to-day have all the best of it, for you can buy a printing outfit complete for $1.50 on up to anything you want to pay for it. After all is said and done though, you can get more real enjoyment out of a small self-inking press than you can out of a larger one. Not only is there a lot of fun in printing cards, etc., for yourself but there is money in it too, if you go about it the right way, but that is another story.[66]

Kinds of Printing Presses.

—There are two kinds of printing presses made and these are (1) hand inked presses, and (2) self-inking presses.

You can make a printing press out of wood but to do a good job you must have a press built of iron and properly machined, that is finished up, for to do good printing a good outfit is needed to begin with.

Small hand inked and self-inking presses are sold in the toy departments of nearly all stores at prices ranging from $1.50 to $5.00 and this will include a font of type. Many of these little presses are made which use type about half the length of regular type and if you get a press of this kind you will never know the real joy of printing.

The Parts of a Self-Inking Press.

—The Excelsior is the name of a small self-inking printing press that has been on the market for 50 years and it is a good one. The description of it which follows will fit any other model self-inking press just as well, for they are all built on the same principle.

There are seven chief parts to this press and these are (1) the body; (2) the type bed; (3) the platen; (4) the ink-roller carriage; (5) the ink table; (6) the chase, and (7) the handle, all of which are shown in Fig. 63.

The body of the press serves to support all the other parts. The bed, as you will see, is really a part of the body casting and the feet of the type rest against it. For this reason it must be perfectly smooth and even, and it is planed off, that is machined, to make it so.

The platen is pivoted to the middle of the body and it swings up to and parallel with the bed and away from and out at an angle to it. The card, or sheet of paper to be printed is laid on the platen and is brought up and into contact with the type which rests on the bed. A pair of grippers are hinged to the platen to hold the paper in place while it is being printed but releases it when the platen moves back.

The ink-roller carriage is connected by levers to the platen and when the latter moves to and fro the rollers run over the type to ink it; the rollers get their ink from the ink table and this is a disk which revolves and on which the ink is spread; the ink table is made to revolve a little at a time so that the rollers will pass over every part of it in every direction and so distribute the ink evenly.

The type when set is locked in an iron frame called a chase and this fits on the bed; and finally all the movable parts are coupled to the handle and when this is moved up and down it makes them perform their various functions.

How the Press Works.

—Let’s suppose now, that you have the type set in the chase and the chase is fixed in the press; that you have put some ink on the ink-table and a card or a sheet of paper on the platen.

Now when you press down on the handle it moves the platen up, the grippers hold the card, or sheet of paper to it, the arms pivoted to the platen pull the ink rollers up and over the type and on to the ink table which turns through a small arc, that is, part of a circle, by a ratchet so that it keeps a fresh surface exposed to the ink rollers all the time.

When the card, or paper makes contact with the type you pull the handle up; this swings the platen back; the grippers relax their pressure; the ink-rollers move down over the face of the type; you take out the printed card or sheet with your left hand and put in a blank one with your right hand, when you are ready to make another impression.

It may surprise you to know that any one can print from 500 to 600 cards an hour and if you are expert you can run off from 1,000 to 2,000 cards per hour.

Sizes and Prices of Presses.

—The Excelsior press comes in three sizes and the price depends on the size of the chase. (1) A press having a chase 3 × 5 inches costs $5.00 and this is large enough to print cards, labels, envelopes, etc.; (2) a 5 × 8 press costs $18.00 and this one will do nice jobs up to postal card size; and (3) a 6 × 10 press costs $25.00 and is large enough to print bill-heads, letter-heads and circulars, or you can print a little newspaper on it.

The Outfit You Need.

—Your outfit will, of course, depend largely on the size of press you have.

Outfit for a 3 × 5 Press.

—A couple of dollars will buy all the fixtures you need and these consist of (a) a font of type, (b) some leads, (c) a type case, (d) an assortment of furniture, and (e) a can of black ink.

A font of type means enough of a kind having the same face and body and the right amount of each letter to set up an ordinary job. You will find more about type under the next heading called Type and Typesetting. Leads are thin strips of type metal less than type-high which are used to separate the lines of type; and a type case is a shallow wooden tray divided into little compartments called boxes in which the letters of a font of type are kept apart.

Outfit for a 5 × 8 Press.

—The fixtures of a press of this size include all of those named above and (a) three fonts of type, (b) type cases for them; (c) a set of gage pins, and (d) a pair of tweezers, or a bodkin. The gage-pins are pinned into the paper backing on the platen to keep the card or sheet from slipping and to hold it in its proper place. The tweezers, or bodkin, which is a large needle, is used for picking out type from a form when you are correcting it.

Outfit for an 8 × 10 Press.

—This outfit should have all the fixtures of both of those described above and you will need not less than four fonts of type, while a composing stick, which is a little metal tray to hold the type in as you set it, is a necessity. These fixtures are shown in Fig. 64.

About Type and Setting Type.

—Relative Number of Type Letters.

—In looking over type catalogues you will see that the fonts are listed as 4A, or 8A-10A, etc. Now this means that in the 4A font there are 4 capital A letters and that all of the other letters are in proportion to the A’s that are likely to be used, thus:

With an 8A-10a font there are of course twice as many of each capital letter as in a 4A font while of the lower case letters, which means the small ones, there are 10 a’s and the number of the others are in proportion to their use, thus:

Styles of Type.

—For card work you want a plain block letter font like that shown at A, a script like B, or an old English like that shown at C.

For envelopes, bill, letter head and other job work three fonts of engraved plate style as shown at D, E and F will give good results.

For circulars you should have several fonts of different styles of type as shown at G, H, I, J and K.

And finally should you intend to print a cook-book, a town directory or a newspaper you will need a half, or a full font of 12 point plain pica Roman, as it is called, and which is shown at L.

The Parts of a Type.

—Before explaining how to set type, make ready and print, there are a few little things about letters and about type which are good to know.

First let’s take, by way of illustration, the letter H H. Now you will observe that the first H is plain and the second one is embellished by fine lines at the top and bottom and these embellishments are called ser′-ifs.

As simple a bit of metal as a type has more parts to it than you can shake a stick at, but you ought to learn them by heart. Named, these parts are (a) the body of the type; (b) the front; (c) the back; (d) the face or letter; (e) the nicks; (f) the feet; (g) the groove; (h) the shoulder; (i) the bevel, and (k) the pin marks, and all of these are pointed out in Fig. 65.

It very often happens in italics and script type that a part of a letter will stand out beyond the body and this little extension is called the kern. The nick in the type is to help the type-setter, or compositor as he is called, to set the type the right way in the stick, that is you always set the type with the nicks down and toward you.

The pin-mark is made by a sharp instrument which removes it from the mold. Finally a c e m n o r s u v w x z are called short letters; j is a long letter in that it takes up the full breadth of the face; b d f h i l t are upstroke, or ascending letters, while g p q are downstroke or descending letters.

The Sizes of Type.

—Type is made in standard sizes and not so very long ago each size was known by a name. Then a change was made and the point system,[67] as it is called, came into general use. The sizes under the old and the new systems are given in the following table and it will enable you to know type sizes both by name and by point.

Your Type Cases.

—There are two kinds of type cases and these are made to hold (1) the capital, or upper case letters, and (2) the small or lower case letters.

The reason the capitals are called upper case letters is because the case that holds them is set higher on the composing stand than the case which holds the small letters; this brings the small letters nearer to the hand of the compositor and as they are used more than the caps he can set the type faster. The arrangement of the cases is shown at A in Fig. 66.

There are several schemes of type-cases but I shall only describe three of them. The first is a small type case 12¹⁄₂ inches square with 48 boxes in it and you can buy one for 35 cents. It is good enough for any one who doesn’t want to go to the bother of learning the regular case. A plan view of the lay of a regular upper and a lower case is shown at B and C. You will see that the e box in the lower case is larger than any other and this is because there are more e’s used in setting up a job than any other one letter. And you will also observe that the letters are distributed and the boxes spaced in a very uneven way, but this arrangement brings the letters that are used the most into the easiest places to reach.

Setting the Type.

—Where you have more than one line to set you should by all means use a composing stick and a small one will cost you a dollar. It should be held in the left hand as shown in Fig. 67, that is, with the open side from you and the slide to the left.

Now read a few lines of your copy, pick the first letter from its box and set it in the left hand corner of the stick with the nick in the type toward your thumb. Take the next letter from its box and let it slide into the composing stick against the first letter and so on from left to right until you have the first word set up.

Now put in a medium sized space, which is made just like a type but only shoulder high and without any letter on it, and begin to set the next word. If when you get to the end of the line there is a space left but not enough to start another word, put a thin space between the words to lengthen out the line, or justify it as it is called.

When you have set the line put a lead, that is a thin strip of typemetal which comes to the shoulder of the type, against it and start a new line and so on until you have the stick half full of type.

The type must now be taken out of the stick and placed on a smooth surface, such as a piece of slate or a stone called an imposing stone, and to do this without dropping some or all of the type and making pi of it, takes practice. To do it like a journeyman, put a lead at the top and bottom of the type, set the stick on the stone, grip the top and bottom with your fore fingers and thumbs and the sides with your other fingers, hold it tight and you can then easily lift it out and into the chase as shown in Fig. 68.

A good way for you to do it at first is to wet the type after you have it set in the composing stick when it will hold together without much trouble. When you can manage half-a-stick full of type you can then try a stick full.

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.

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.

Instead of cardboard you can use three bent pins to gage the sheet, or, still better, use regular steel gage pins (see Fig. 64), for these can be adjusted to a nicety.

Printing the Job.

—All that remains for you to do now is to put about as much ink as you can get on the point of the blade of a penknife on the ink table and then roll it out thin and even with a small hand roller.

Lay your stock on the table to the right of the press and feed in a card or a sheet at a time with your right hand and see to it that you get it in squarely against the gage pins; take away your hand and press the handle down with your left hand; raise it up, take the printed sheet out with your left hand, feed in another one and so on until the job is done.

How to Clean Type.

—As soon as you have printed a job take the chase from the press and before you unlock the form rub the face of the type with a rag dipped in benzine, or turpentine and when all the ink and smut is gone wipe it with a clean rag.

If the type gets clogged up with ink wash it out with a tooth-brush dipped in benzine and when the ink on the table and the rollers gets dirty or does not work well wash it off with benzine also. To do good printing everything must be immaculately clean.

About Distributing Type.

—After you have cleaned the type, unlock the form and then take a line o’ type at a time on a lead in your left hand; pick off two or three letters at once and drop each one into its respective box.

The Ink and Rollers.

—The Ink.

—While of course you will buy your ink all ready to use you may like to know how it is made. Here’s a recipe for a printing ink that is as old as the hills and as good as gold: Balsam of capivi 4¹⁄₂ ounces; lampblack 1¹⁄₂ ounces; indigo ⁵⁄₈ ounce; India red ³⁄₈ ounce, and turpentine dry soap 1¹⁄₂ ounces; mix these ingredients well in a mortar with a pestle; then mix the mass with boiled linseed oil to the right thickness.

When buying ink for job printing get one that is a quick drier and this costs from 50 cents to $1.50 a pound according to quality. You can also buy colored inks in red, white, blue, yellow, green, brown and purple in 4 ounce cans for 60 cents a can.

The Rollers.

—While it is cheaper and better to buy ink rollers ready made, if you want to try your hand at making them yourself get 1 pound Peter Cooper’s best glue; 1 quart best sugar house syrup, and 1 pint of glycerine.

Soak the glue in rain water until it is soft, drain off all the excess water, put it in a glue pot and set it on a slow fire until it is melted. Now put in the syrup, boil it for half an hour, stirring it the while, and skim off the scum that comes to the top.

About 5 minutes before you take it from the fire add the other things and then pour the mixture into the mold, which is simply a brass cylinder of the diameter and length you want the roller. The stock, as the spindle of the roller is called, is set exactly in the middle of the mold and the composition is poured into it.

Printing in Colors.

—Printing in two or more colors, or color printing, is not only interesting work to do, but profitable, since you can easily get orders for it. It is a little harder to do a good job with colored inks than it is with black ink, but if you will use plain type and good colored ink you will have small trouble in doing a creditable job.

Printing in Gold.

—When you want to print in gilt instead of in black you can do it either by printing in black ink first and then dusting bronze powder over it with a tuft of cotton, or print the job with gold size which makes the powder stick better. Dust the excess powder off with a bit of cotton when the letters will stand out in gold beautifully.

You can buy a 3 ounce can of gold size for a quarter and bronze powder can be had in 1 ounce cans in gold, silver, cardinal red and copper. All of the above materials can be bought of the Kelsey Press Company, Meriden, Conn., and you ought to send for one of their catalogues.

And Finally Your Stock Supply.

—You will need a supply of both visiting and business cards; paper for labels, handbills and newspapers—that is, if you intend to print one—and paper for bill-heads, statements, letter-heads and envelopes to match them.

Cards come in all sizes and colors and in any quantity however small; they are sold under the name of thin white, thin colored, heavy china, business bristol, fine bristol, extra fine bristol, satin enameled and linen finished bristol. Then there are cards with gold beveled and lace edges; fancy embossed, with round edges, and for mourning.

Paper can be bought that is gummed on one side for labels; linen and bond papers are used for correspondence; the cheapest kind of white and colored paper is good enough for handbills but you should use a good white stock for newspaper work. Before ordering stock of any kind the best way to do is to send for a full set of samples and then you will know just what you are buying.

The Art of Paper Making

Of course you know what paper looks like and how it feels, but it is not so likely that you know what it is and how it is made; but paper making is an art so old, so wonderful and so useful, that you ought to make enough to know all about it.

What Paper Is.

—Paper is made by chemical and mechanical processes from rags, straw or wood into thin sheets. These materials are formed of fibers made up of what chemists call cellulose[68] and this substance is in turn composed of C₆H₁₀O₅, that is 6 atoms of carbon, 10 atoms of hydrogen and 5 atoms of oxygen.

How to Make Paper.

—Whatever material you use to make the paper of it must be converted into a pulp first. Cotton or linen makes the best paper—this is called rag paper—because these materials are nearly pure cellulose to begin with.

Making the Pulp.

—To make a little paper take about a pound of white cotton or linen rags and cut them up into little bits; boil them in a solution of caustic soda for a couple of hours, to get out all the dirt and grease, and stir them often.

Next wash out the dirty water that has resulted from boiling them and then the cotton or linen must be broken up and beaten until the fibers are separated. You can do this by putting the fabrics into a chopping bowl, wetting it down with clean water and then using a pair of chopping knives on them until the fibers are cut fine, and you must change the water often. In paper mills a rag engine, as it is called, is used to wash and break up the rags.

The Molds You Need.

—Make half-a-dozen frames of wood ¹⁄₄ inch thick and ¹⁄₂ an inch wide, and about 5 × 8 inches on the sides; and cover these with brass wire netting having about 20 wires to the inch as shown in Fig. 70. School slate frames are good for this purpose.

Laying the Paper.

—Now spread a thin layer of pulp on the wire netting of each frame, or mold, and set them to one side to dry. When you have all the molds filled and the pulp is dry turn each frame upside down on a sheet of blotting paper and lay another sheet of blotting paper over the paper you are making.

In this way pile up the blotting paper and the paper in the making and then put them under pressure; this you can do by placing the pile between two smooth 1 inch thick boards and screwing them together with a couple of wood clamps.[69] After an hour or so you can take the clamps from the pile and separate the sheets of paper from the blotting paper.

Next place the paper between sheets of oil board,[70] make a pile of them and screw them up between the wood clamps again good and tight and leave them there over night; then hang up each sheet of paper by a corner with a clip and let it dry.

Sizing and Finishing.

—When the sheets are dry take them down and lay them carefully in a pile for sizing. Make the sizing by dissolving gelatine in hot water until it is about as thick as milk with the cream in it.

Pour the sizing into a shallow dish or, better, a photographic tray; lay each sheet, first one side and then the other, on the sizing and be careful to wet it evenly all over. Put the sized paper between the sheets of oil board again, make a pile of them, screw on the wood clamps, let them stay under pressure for half a day and, finally when you take them out let them dry slowly and you will have a hand made paper that you have made with your own hands.

How to Bind Books

If you will look at this book carefully you will conclude that it would be next to impossible to bind one that would even faintly resemble it. But while I do not want you to believe that you can do a job that would anywhere nearly equal it, you can bind a book good enough so that you will not feel ashamed to let any one see it.

Making the Cover.

—First mark out with a rule and then cut out two pieces of pasteboard each of which is just as wide as the book you are going to bind and ¹⁄₄ inch longer as shown at A in Fig. 71.

Lay these boards on a piece of muslin or calico, or you can buy regular book-binder’s cloth for the purpose[71] and cut it 2 inches wider than the length of the boards and three times as long as the width of one of them as shown at B.

Coat these boards on one side with a good glue laid on thin and glue them to the cloth so that they will be separated from each other by a space ¹⁄₂ an inch wider than the thickness of the book you are binding as shown at B and C; this done glue the edges of the cloth over on to the other sides of the boards as shown at D in Fig. 72.