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Letterpress Printing Technology
Introduction Introduction
THOUGH THE INVENTION of moveable type can be traced to Asia, it was an innovation perhaps better suited to a more limited European alphabet and the widespread manufacture of it came in the 15th century, in Germany. Johann Gutenberg combined the existing technology of the screw press with oil-based inks and the metalworking skills of punch cutting and casting to make printing and the manufacture of type possible. For almost five hundred years the basic printing elements used by Gutenberg went virtually unchanged, although innovation and improvement within his model were constant. Printing presses were made from wood until being manufactured from cast iron in the 1800s, type was cut and cast by hand until the 1880s, and type was set by hand well into the early 1900s. The Manufacture of Moveable Type
Letters were cut in reverse into the end of a piece of steel, creating a punch. One punch had to be cut for each letter of the alphabet, including numbers and punctuation, and in every size and style needed -- for example in roman, italic and bold. Punch cutting was a craft requiring great skill and sets of punches were highly valued.
Next, the punch was hammered into a small bar of copper, forming a mould, or matrix. The matrix was then placed in a hand-caster. The caster -- made of two parts -- allowed for letters of varying widths to be cast, such as a narrow "i" and a wide "w". Molten metal, a mixture of lead, tin, antimony and copper, was poured into the caster. When the metal was hard, a piece of type, with the letter in relief on the end, was released from the mould.
Using the hand mould, it is believed a man could cast 4000 letters a day. It was not until the development of a typecasting machine in the 1880s that this process changed. Typesetting - Hand CompositionType was sorted and stored in a type case. The compositor stood in front of the case and selected type one letter at a time. The letters were placed in a composing stick that was held in the left hand. Type was set left to right, spelling normally, but upside-down. Compositors learned to read this unusual layout.
The compositor filled the composing stick, inserting thin pieces of lead between each row of type. Once the stick was full and each line was justified, the type was transferred onto a galley tray. This process was repeated until the job was completely set. A quick print was taken on a simple press, to check for spelling mistakes, letter spacing and general design and layout. This was known as the galley proof. If the layout was acceptable, the type was locked into a chase (a metal frame). The finished tray, with its type locked-down, was referred to as the forme, and was taken to the press to make-ready for printing. Hand composition continued unchanged for over 400 years. It was not until the invention of the Linotype type caster in 1886 that typesetting changed. Hot Type - Machine CompositionWhen the Industrial Revolution brought such significant change to the technology of manufacturing, printing was not immune. In 1886, Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German watchmaker, demonstrated his new Linotype machine at the New York Tribune, and began what is referred to as "the hot type revolution." His typecasting machine could set and cast full lines of type at a speed comparable to the work of six compositors. Hot type technology went unchallenged for another 60 to 70 years.
In the 1950s and 1960s photo-mechanical typesetting and offset lithography began to replace typecasters and letterpress technology as the main means of printing production. The more recent use of the computer for typesetting sealed the fate of letterpress technology in commercial printing. 
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