Page:The practice of typography - a treatise on the processes of type-making, the point system, the names, sizes, styles and prices of plain printing types by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/353

 Early Methods of Cutting Wood 347 The wood types first made in the United States were drawn by the printers who needed them and afterward cut by carpenters. Darius p roce8S e8 Wells, a printer of New York city, who tried by had a local reputation for good drawing D - Wel of letters, abandoned printing in 1827, and gave exclusive attention to the manufacture of wood type. At that time it was the usual practice to draw and cut on the flat board. Wells was the first to follow the practice of engravers on wood, by using blocks that had been cut in sections across the fibers. The work of preparing blocks was done entirely by hand ; the tools most used were the ordinary saw and slide-plane. Model letters were drawn for all the characters on card- board, which was then neatly cut to serve for pat- terns. When the outline of the patterns had been traced by pencil on the surface of the block, a graver was used to cut a wide furrow near the penciled line. This done, the counters and shoul- ders were cut away by chisels and gouges. Fin- ishing was done with gravers and fine files. To abridge the tedious labor of cutting away the counters and shoulders Wells made use of a simple tool which he called the " router. 77 It was a flat-faced and half-round steel bit, made to rotate by steam power at high speed. The bit, suspended vertically over the wood to be cut, had attachments for raising or depressing it at will. The block of wood to be made into a type was