| Title: | Typefounder's stone |
| Original Title: | Pierre servant aux fondeurs de caracteres d'imprimerie |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 12 (1765), p. 599 |
| Author: | Unknown |
| Translator: | IML Donaldson [University of Edinburgh and Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh] |
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.279 |
| Citation (MLA): | "Typefounder's stone." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by IML Donaldson. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2010. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.279>. Trans. of "Pierre servant aux fondeurs de caracteres d'imprimerie," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 12. Paris, 1765. |
| Citation (Chicago): | "Typefounder's stone." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by IML Donaldson. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0001.279 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Pierre servant aux fondeurs de caracteres d'imprimerie," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 12:599 (Paris, 1765). |
The typefounder’s stone is used for rubbing down type [after it is cast]. This stone is a grindstone of sandstone about fifteen to twenty inches in diameter similar to that used by cutlers to grind their tools. To prepare these stones for use by the typefounder one takes a pair of them and puts one on top of the other on a flat surface with river sand between them, then they are rotated, changing the sand from time to time, until the sand has worn away all the little lumps on the stones and the surface is flat and uniform. The sand does not polish the stones but leaves them speckled and with a grain suitable for removing from the pieces of type the little excrescences which they have on the body when they come out of the mould. This is achieved by rubbing the pieces of type one by one on the stone ; this smoothes and polishes them only on the sides which abut the neighbouring type when they are composed. See Rubbing and the plates on Typefounding.