| Title: | Sheep's foot |
| Original Title: | Pié de chevre |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 12 (1765), pp. 564–565 |
| Author: | Unknown |
| Translator: | IML Donaldson [University of Edinburgh and Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh] |
| Subject terms: |
Printing
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| 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.did2222.0003.893 |
| Citation (MLA): | "Sheep's foot." 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.did2222.0003.893>. Trans. of "Pié de chevre," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 12. Paris, 1765. |
| Citation (Chicago): | "Sheep's foot." 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.did2222.0003.893 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Pié de chevre," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 12:564–565 (Paris, 1765). |
A Sheep’s foot [1] is a special sort of hammer used by pressmen which consists of a rounded piece of iron seven or eight inches long and two inches in diameter. One of its ends terminates in a hammer head used in mounting the balls, in fact, for hammering the nails [to attach the leathers to the wood of the [ink] balls. The other end, which resembles a sharp curved claw, acts as a pair of pincers when the nails need to be pulled out to break down the [ink] balls. See Ink balls, Wood of the balls, Leathers.
Notes
1. Literally, a goat’s foot, but Moxon and Savage both call this tool a sheep’s foot. See J. Moxon, Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing, vol. 2 (London: Printed for Joseph Moxon on the West-side of Fleet-ditch at the sign of Atlas, 1683), 308-9; and William Savage, A dictionary of the art of printing (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1841), 755-56.