TYPES. By this term is understood the letters, from the smallest size to the largest, with which books and other arti cles are printed. A single type consists of the shank, the beard, and the face. The shank is the body of the letter ; the beard is that part between the shoulder of the shank and the face; the face is the shape of the letter, from which the impression is taken.
The first care of the letter-cutter is to prepare well-tempered steel punches, up on which he draws or marks the exact shape of the letter, with pen and ink if it be large, but with a smooth blunted point of a needle if it be small; and then, with aproper sized and shaped graver and sculptor, he digs or scoops out the metal between the strokes upon the face of the punch, leaving the marks un touched and prominent. He next works the outside with files till it be fitfor the matrix. Punches are also made by ham mering down the hollows, filing up the edges, and then hardening the soft steel. Before he proceeds to sink and justify the matrix, he provides a mould to justi fy them by.
A matrix is a piece of brass or copper, about an inch and a half long, and thick in proportion to the size of the letter which it is to contain. In this metal the face of the letter intended to be cast is sunk, by striking it with the punch to a depth of about one-eighth of an inch.
The mould in which the types are cast, is composed of two parts. The outer part is made of wood, the inner of steel. At the top it has a hopper-mouth, into which the fused type-metal is poured. The interior cavity is as uniform as if it had been hollowed out of a single piece of steel. From the pot, over the furnace, containing the type metal fused, a small iron ladle lifts as much as will cast a let ter. The metal is poured into the ma trix, and with a jerk of the hand the me tal is carried round the matrix, and made to fill all its crevices perfectly. A tail of metal hangs to the type as it quits the mould. There are nicks on the lower edge of the type, to enable the composi tor to set them upright without looking at them.
The tails are next removed, and the broad sides of the type rubbed on a grit stone. They are then set up in a frame with the nicks outward, when they are polished on each side and proved at the bottom, to make them stand more readi ly. They are then tied up in lines of suitable length.
Machines for type-making are com mencing to be used, and, instead of a fused metal being used, a rod of copper or other metal is pressed by machinery on a steel die having the letter cut into it.