| Title: | Composing stick |
| Original Title: | Composteur |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 3 (1753), pp. 774–775 |
| Author: | Unknown |
| Translator: | IML Donaldson [University of Edinburgh and Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh] |
| Subject terms: |
Printing
|
| 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.did2222.0003.872 |
| Citation (MLA): | "Composing stick." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by IML Donaldson. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2019. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.872>. Trans. of "Composteur," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 3. Paris, 1753. |
| Citation (Chicago): | "Composing stick." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by IML Donaldson. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.872 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Composteur," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 3:774–775 (Paris, 1753). |
The composing stick is a printing tool used only by the compositor. It is a piece of iron or brass, [1] flat, polished, nine to ten inches long by five or six lines wide with an upstand two or three lines high along its whole length. [2] Its front ends in a square section while the other end is rounded. The body of the stick is a sort of plate pierced by several holes separated by a little distance which can accommodate a screw passing from below into a nut above [the plate] which is notched on both sides to hold or release two little slides three or four inches long placed one on top of the other on the base of the stick and no wider than it. They are held in place by the screw and nut and press against the upstand so that their ends form with it a rectangular space. These slides separated by a greater or lesser distance on the base determine the length of the lines [of type] on a page. [3] It is in the space between the upstands of the two slides that the compositor (who holds the stick in his left hand) places the base of the letters which he takes up in his right hand [from the case of type] until he has filled the line. See in the Letterpress Printing Plates [Plate II] the whole stick and its separate components. There is another type of composing stick used for composing music, ornaments and algebra. It differs from the above only in that its upstand of twelve to fourteen lines allows five or six lines of type to be put in one on top of the other.
Wooden composing sticks about two feet long also exist to set up large letters or poster type. See the article Printing.
Notes
1. Cuivre . Cuivre may mean copper ( cuivre rouge ) or brass ( cuivre jaune ). But copper would be quite unsuitable for composing sticks which were made of brass, iron, gunmetal or wood.
2. There are 12 lignes to one pre-revolutionary French inch ( pouce ) The standardized conversion for a ligne is 2.2558291 mm (1 mm = 0.443296 ligne ). One ligne is the equivalent of 0.0888 international inch.
3. The construction of the stick is made much clearer by figs. 1 and 2 of Plate II of the Letterpress Printing Plates.