See a working model of an early hand printing press
A demonstration of printing on the type of press that was used in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library; CC-BY-SA 4.0 (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
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Transcript
STEVEN GALBRAITH: This is a model of an early modern hand press. And this is the device that would have printed books. Books such as Shakespeare's First Folio, and the King James Bible, would've been produced on a press such as this.
This is a working model. And it's about one third or a quarter size of what a press would have been back in that era.
So the beginning of the printing process begins with setting type. And I'm taking individual pieces of type, which have letters at the end of them, and setting it in my composing stick to create words and sentences.
The type I'm using today is all put into one case here. But a compositor working in the early modern times would have had two cases, one for uppercase letters and one for lowercase letters. And that's where we get our terms uppercase and lowercase.
Well, the three main people that worked at a print shop were the compositor, and that's the person who set the type. And then two pressman. One who would apply the ink and another who would put the paper onto the tympan and pull the handle once everything was set and ready to go.
Once the compositor has filled the stick with several sentences, he'll move that to a galley and tie that type up, and then fill the stick again. Once there's a page worth of material, the type is moved from the galley to what we call a form.
So I've just inserted the form. In our model press, our form has a metal bottom, which is kind of cheating. In the early modern times, there wouldn't be a bottom to it. It would be more like a frame that is tightened around the type and a different sort of furniture that holds the type together.
So the next step is to apply the ink to the type. What I'm using is an ink roller. That's not what they would have used in the early modern times.
What they would've used was what was called ink balls. And they were leather balls full of wool on sticks, almost like lollipops. And they would roll it into the ink, and then beat it onto the type.
Early modern ink was made from soot or lamp black. And it was mixed with an oil, such as linseed oil.
So two people operated the press. The first applied ink, while the second put paper onto the tympan and got ready to pull the handle. So the paper was put onto the tympan. Small nails hold it on. So the tympan is lowered onto the form. And using a handle called the rounds, we slide the carriage underneath the platen and pull the bar. And the bar is going to push the platen down onto the tympan, which pushes the paper onto the type and it makes the impression.
A model printing press, designed by students at Bucknell University, class of 2001. Folger Shakespeare Library. And to add a little illustration, we've put here Shakespeare's coat of arms.
This is a working model. And it's about one third or a quarter size of what a press would have been back in that era.
So the beginning of the printing process begins with setting type. And I'm taking individual pieces of type, which have letters at the end of them, and setting it in my composing stick to create words and sentences.
The type I'm using today is all put into one case here. But a compositor working in the early modern times would have had two cases, one for uppercase letters and one for lowercase letters. And that's where we get our terms uppercase and lowercase.
Well, the three main people that worked at a print shop were the compositor, and that's the person who set the type. And then two pressman. One who would apply the ink and another who would put the paper onto the tympan and pull the handle once everything was set and ready to go.
Once the compositor has filled the stick with several sentences, he'll move that to a galley and tie that type up, and then fill the stick again. Once there's a page worth of material, the type is moved from the galley to what we call a form.
So I've just inserted the form. In our model press, our form has a metal bottom, which is kind of cheating. In the early modern times, there wouldn't be a bottom to it. It would be more like a frame that is tightened around the type and a different sort of furniture that holds the type together.
So the next step is to apply the ink to the type. What I'm using is an ink roller. That's not what they would have used in the early modern times.
What they would've used was what was called ink balls. And they were leather balls full of wool on sticks, almost like lollipops. And they would roll it into the ink, and then beat it onto the type.
Early modern ink was made from soot or lamp black. And it was mixed with an oil, such as linseed oil.
So two people operated the press. The first applied ink, while the second put paper onto the tympan and got ready to pull the handle. So the paper was put onto the tympan. Small nails hold it on. So the tympan is lowered onto the form. And using a handle called the rounds, we slide the carriage underneath the platen and pull the bar. And the bar is going to push the platen down onto the tympan, which pushes the paper onto the type and it makes the impression.
A model printing press, designed by students at Bucknell University, class of 2001. Folger Shakespeare Library. And to add a little illustration, we've put here Shakespeare's coat of arms.