Johannes Gutenberg: Inventor of the Printing Press by Fran Rees

Author:Fran Rees [Rees, Fran]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Historical, Science & Technology, History, Renaissance
ISBN: 9780756509897
Google: 8kmsUImcv50C
Amazon: 0756509890
Publisher: Capstone
Published: 2005-09-01T22:00:00+00:00

A person called a compositor placed each bar of type into a chase to make words and sentences in mirror image.

Making a letter took great care and accuracy. All the letters had to stand above the metal base at exactly the same height. All this was possible by using the hand mold, a real breakthrough for Gutenberg’s invention.

A printer inspects a chase filled with bars of type.

After Gutenberg chose the letters he needed to make sentences and paragraphs, he placed them into a chase about the size of the page he would print. This form held the letters tightly together to keep them from shifting. The slightest movement would cause the letters to blur or smear. The letters were placed in the chase in a mirror image—backward and read from right to left. That way, when the letters were transferred with ink onto the printed page, they would be turned the correct way and could be read from left to right.

Now the chase was placed into an iron bed, a flat, shallow, boxlike metal frame. The sides were pushed together to hold the chase firmly in place. The metal bars of type had to stick up above the edges of the frame. Otherwise, when the press came down on the letters, the edges of the frame would also make an imprint.

Next, it was time to use the press, which was not a new invention. Different varieties of presses already existed in Europe. Winemakers had been using large wooden presses for centuries to crush grapes and extract the juices. But a press for printing could not be as simple as a wine press. It had to press down on the paper with a certain even pressure, and it could not move from side to side once it touched the paper.

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