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.

Fig. 67. How To Hold A Composing Stick

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.

Fig. 68. Putting A Stick Of Type In The Chase

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.

Fig. 69. tools for locking up a chase

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.