INTRODUCTORY

The essential articles of furniture in a modern composing room may be classified broadly, omitting obvious details for the present, under the following heads:

1. Cases for type for general composition; for borders, type ornaments, accented letters, fractions, extra sorts, etc., and for engraved plates, and electrotypes; for spaces and quads, brass rules, leads, slugs, metal furniture and large spacing material, and for wood type. Also cases in special cabinets for printed specimens, paper samples, etc.

2. Work Stands and Cabinets—Open wooden frames with or without racks, to hold cases on top; made single or double; with working top. Cabinets, with working top, holding cases, enclosed on sides and back; made single, double, or triple size. Cabinets are made of pressed steel as well as of hard wood.

3. Cabinets and Storage Racks for Cases—In addition to the racks in working stands and cabinets, there are standing racks, cabinets (flat top for holding miscellaneous articles or material, and galley top for temporary storage of live or dead matter), etc.

4. Galley Cabinets and Racks—These are to hold galley matter waiting return of proofs, or for pages made up and waiting to be locked up for electro foundry or for the pressroom. They may be placed in any convenient place, or are sometimes in movable form to be taken from composing or correcting stands to the make-up stand or imposing table.

5. Furniture Racks and Cabinets—For labor-saving fonts of reglet, wood furniture, soft metal or steel furniture, etc.

6. Standing Galleys—These are stands with inclined tops divided sometimes horizontally and sometimes perpendicularly into narrow columns, for holding live or dead standing matter—usually the latter awaiting distribution. The lower part of the frame is usually provided with racks for cases, letter-boards, galleys, or other storage facilities.

7. Imposing Tables—Large flat surfaces upon which pages and forms are imposed and locked up for electrotype molding or prepared for the press. These consist of polished marble slabs on strong frames or tables, with drawer for quoins, etc., and also furnished below with galley racks, receptacles for wood or metal furniture, letter-boards, chase racks, etc. The more common modern imposing tables are made of steel, on iron frames, with the lower parts fitted for the storage of material used in locking up forms.

8. Proofing Apparatus—Proof planer and mallet, galley press, hand press, modern curved-surface machines, automatic proofing machines, self-feeding and self-inking. These also include proof rollers, ink tables, shelves for proof paper, and receptacles for benzine or other type-washing liquids.

In addition to the foregoing brief summary there are numerous other items of composing-room equipment, large and small, provided for the particular needs of the work carried on in the place. Many of these items, however, are not in extensive use, as in many places the needs they would serve might not warrant the expense of their installation. The specialties of the printing industry nowadays affect the composing-room as well as the other departments.

A particular article which is useful and profitable in one place may be quite superfluous and an unnecessary expense in another. The kind and quantity of the work done in any workroom usually governs the kind and the extent of the equipment provided—making allowance always for the customary variation in individual judgment and the proprietor's ability to purchase.

There is a wide range of choice from a plain wooden double stand with two pairs of cases, at which two persons may work, costing six to ten dollars, to a latest pattern steel working cabinet, also providing for only two workers, costing one hundred dollars, or even more.

There are, however, certain articles and facilities fundamentally necessary to carry on the work of a composing room. The particular form of these—whether simple and inexpensive or elaborate and costly—is a question for the proprietor or manager to consider.

The articles of furniture classified under items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, in the foregoing list, are those treated in this book; those referred to in item 7, Imposing Tables and Lock-Up Appliances, being considered in a separate volume (No. 4). Proof Presses, item 8, are also treated in a separate book (No. 5).