I remember seeing my friends and coworkers pushing back their wheeled chairs suddenly on occasion when they had a hot metal squirt at the Linotypes. They sat back to back, so it did happen rarely that they both would push back at once, and end up banging into each other.
Hi, Ray. Thanks for your reply. When I took printing in high school, and also taught myself from several highly regarded textbooks of the era, it was stressed that we should handle the type left-to-right. So that’s how I learned it and still think of it. In the case of machine set slugs, once they fall out of the machine into the galley, it is possible to pick them up and hold them any way you like, but we were taught the correct way to read a slug was left-to-right. In the case of foundry type, each piece of type has a groove on it. The grooves were in slightly different spots on the type depending on the font, but all grooves were at the bottom of the letter. And we were taught to set the type left-to-right with the grooves away from us. Feeling for the groove with your finger as you proceeded helped to make sure no letters were turned upside down.
On the other hand, Gabe was using one of the Linotype machines just moments before these two showed up, so it was already on. I’m not sure what exactly is supposed to be happening today.
My first thought today was “What is he turning on?” One of the Linotype machines, most probably, because we’ve seen an overview of the room where this is taking place, and there was no press in the room. The rotary letterpress we were shown on that Sunday a while back was big enough to fill another room in the building. Plus, we do see hot lead splashing from a pot in today’s strip.
Yes, that’s what I meant by “mirror image” – if you were to hold a linotype slug, or any foundry type, up to a mirror, it would read correctly in the mirror, just the same as when it was pressed against the paper.
But I don’t quite understand the folks who have commented here about “writing backwards” – I never thought of it that way, because you still set the type left-to-right, and you start with the first word of your copy and proceed to the last word, same as reading the copy.
Thank you for the pic of the linotype slug. For clarification, I should point out that it is actually “backwards” in the picture. The way that type, both handset and machine set, was handled was with the words reading left-to-right, same as the printed page. Then the lines were collected with the top line being closest to the typesetter, building your column further and further away from you as you proceeded. The type face itself was a mirror image of what would appear on the page.
It would be a nice Gouldian touch if the slug hit her in such a way that the type leaves a readable impression on her face, depending of course on what exactly Gabe typed out just before she and Borden arrived.
Today we see that 4T has a room full of Linotype machines! I had taken it for granted that it was a much smaller operation with just the one Linotype. We only saw Gabe dismiss the one operator, sending him home early – I thought the other guy was either a stone man or a press operator. (Stone man – the craftsman who assembles the type and engravings into page form, on a large table with a smooth top originally made of marble.)
I remember seeing my friends and coworkers pushing back their wheeled chairs suddenly on occasion when they had a hot metal squirt at the Linotypes. They sat back to back, so it did happen rarely that they both would push back at once, and end up banging into each other.