Stereotyping is said to have been invented by J. Van der Mey, in Holland,
about 1698. A quarto Bible and some other books were printed by him
from plates, which were formed by soldering the bottoms of common type
together. William Ged, of Edinburgh, discovered the present mode in
1725, and stereotyped parts of the Bible and Prayer-Book. He encountered
malicious opposition, and the business was abandoned, the new method
dying with the inventor. About 1745, Benjamin Mecom, a nephew of Dr.
Franklin, cast plates for a number of the pages of the New Testament.
Dr. Alexander Tilloch, of Glasgow, re-discovered the art in 1781.
Stereotyping gradually spread, and soon effected a considerable reduction
in the cost of books. The arguments that were advanced against its
utility have a ridiculous look at the present day, when almost every
important work is stereotyped or electrotyped.
Matter for stereotyping is set with high spaces and quadrates. The forms
must be small, containing about two pages of common octavo. A slug
type-high is put above the top line and another below the foot line of
each page, to protect the ends of the plates from injury when they are
passed through the shaving-machine. Beveled slugs, in height equal to the
shoulder of the type, are placed on both sides and between the pages, to
form the flange by which the plate is to be clasped by the hooks of the
printing-block.
Before the form is sent into the foundry, the type must be carefully
compared with the proof, to detect any errors which may have been left
uncorrected. Care must be taken to lock up the form perfectly square and
quite tight, to prevent the types from being pulled out when the mould is
raised from the pages. It must be evenly planed down, and no ink or dirt
or incrustations from the ley be allowed to remain on the surface.
The face of the type being clean and dry, and the bottoms free from
particles of dirt, the form is laid on a clean moulding-stone, and
brushed over with sweet-oil, which must be laid on as thinly as possible,
care being taken that the entire surface of the types is covered. A
moulding-frame, with a screw at each corner, (called a _flask_,) and
fitting neatly to the form, is next placed around it.
The material for moulding is finely ground gypsum, nine parts of which
are mixed with about seven parts of water, and well stirred up. A small
quantity of the liquid mixture is poured over the pages, and gently
pressed into the counter of the types with a small roller, for the
purpose of expelling confined air; after which, the remainder of the
gypsum is poured in, until the mould is somewhat higher than the upper
edge of the flask. In a few minutes the mixture sets, and the upper
side is smoothed over with a steel straight-edge. In about ten minutes
the mould is gently raised by means of the screws at the corners of the
flask; and, after being nicely trimmed at the sides, and nicked on the
surface-edges to make openings for the metal to run in, it is placed on
a shelf in an oven, and allowed to remain until the moisture has quite
evaporated.
The casting-pans may be large enough to hold three or four moulds. The
dried moulds are placed in a pan face downward, upon a movable iron plate
called a floater. The cover of the casting-pan, which has a hole at each
corner for the passage of the metal, is then clamped to it, and lifted
by a movable crane and gently lowered into the metal-pot,—containing,
it may be, a thousand pounds of liquid metal,—till the metal begins to
flow slowly in at the corners. When the pan is filled, it is sunk to the
bottom of the pot. The metal should be hot enough to light a piece of
brown paper held in it. After being immersed eight or ten minutes, the
pan is steadily drawn out by means of the crane, and swung over to the
cooling-trough, into which it is lowered and placed upon a stone so as
just to touch the water, in order that the metal at the bottom of the
pan may cool first. The metal contracts while cooling, and the caster
occasionally pours in a small quantity at the corners from a ladle, till
it will take no more. It may be here remarked that some stereotypers do
not dry the moulds, but immerse them in a green condition into the metal.
The plates are carefully removed from the solid mass which comes out
of the pan, and the plaster is washed from the surface. If, after
examination, the face is good and sharply set, the plates are passed
over to a picker, who removes any slight defects arising from an
imperfection of the mould. They are then trimmed and passed through the
shaving-machine, till all are brought to an equal thickness. The flanges
are neatly side-planed, and the plates are then boxed, ready for the
printing-press.
In England, the plates are merely turned on the back, and consequently
vary in thickness. This must be a source of continual expense
and annoyance to the pressman. The flanges, besides, are very
imperfectly made,—so imperfectly that they cannot be used on American
printing-blocks; and English plates, when imported into this country, are
therefore sent to a foundry here, to be brought to an equal thickness
and to be properly side-planed. An order given some years ago by an
English printer for a set of American printing-blocks was afterward
countermanded, on account of the prejudice against the introduction of
new things.
Several methods of stereotyping are now practised. Many of the leading
newspapers of England and America are printed from stereotype plates
cast in moulds made of prepared paper: this mode, however, yields very
inferior plates, quite unfit for fine books.
Another method, styled the “mud-process,” is by spreading a thin coating
of pulverized soapstone and gypsum over an iron plate, and a mould is
then obtained by pressing the coated face against a page of type. Several
of these mould-plates are then set on end in an iron box, separated from
one another by a wire of the thickness of the stereotype desired, and hot
metal is poured in. This is a very expeditious process, though not so
good as the old method.
In 1804, before the introduction of stereotyping into this country,
Mathew Carey, the well-known enterprising publisher in Philadelphia, had
the Bible in quarto set up entire, and regularly imposed in chases, to
print from at convenience, according to the demand for the volume. The
type was cast by Binny & Ronaldson. Stereotyping would have saved much of
the large outlay required to carry out the scheme, which, nevertheless,
even under these circumstances, was doubtless highly remunerative. The
weight of type must have amounted to 25,000 pounds, to say nothing of the
number of chases and column-rules required.