Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/202

 properly-sharpened graver very little "burr" is made in cutting, the metal being removed with a clean shaving. In dry point, which has been referred to in connection with etching, this burr or slight ridge at the edges of the furrow gives a quality to the finished result in the print, but in line engraving all burr is removed by a tool called the scraper.

When the whole design has been incised on the metal in this manner, the plate is inked and then wiped. The ink fills the channels cut by the graver, and the plate is passed through a printing press having a damp sheet of paper pressed into the cut lines, which pressure transfers the ink from the plate on to the surface of the paper. The result is a print.

By this time the beginner will have come to realise that all engraving is in reverse, that is to say, all objects cut on the metal face the reverse way they face when printed. A blacksmith wielding a hammer would hold it in his left hand when drawn on the copper; in the finished print from the copper plate he would be right-handed. Upon holding any print to a mirror it will be seen what the copper-plate design looked like when inked.

Since the graver is pushed forward away from the engraver, and not held in the natural way as is a pencil or pen, the method is far less spontaneous than etching. The burin cannot attempt any sudden or momentary impulse of the artist, whereas the etching needle is as free as a crayon upon paper. In the old days four or five years was no uncommon period for an engraver to be employed upon one