(If you just came here and are wondering what this page is about, click here for an orientation.)
Even Moxon really didn't start at the beginning - he didn't have to mine his own metal ore, for example. But he started as near to the beginning as anyone ever did, by forging his own rough punch blanks at a blacksmith's forge (or by making patterns in wood for the guidance of a blacksmith).
Unless you really desire the full 17th century experience, this is no longer necessary. We are fortunate today in having readily available high-quality tool steel in standard stock sizes. That's where I'll start here.
Moxon and Fournier hardened their steel by quenching it in water 1 ( {Moxon 1683 [1962]}: 109, which in turn references {Moxon 1703}: 61. {Fournier 1768 [1930]}: 77-78) We don't necessarily need to follow this practice 2 , but it is traditional and a good place to start. The basic modern water hardening tool steel is designated "W1". It has a carbon content of about 1 percent. 3 We used W1 in Stan Nelson's class.
You can buy W1 from any number of suppliers, both in person and online. One issue you may find is that many suppliers only carry W1 as "drill rod" (that is, in round cross-sections ground to tight tolerances). We need flat stock. McMaster-Carr ( http://www.mcmaster.com) carries a good selection online. It's not that expensive in the small cross-sections we need. I find that 3' lengths travel well by mail. Just get ordinary rectangular stock; we don't need ground flat stock, as we'll be filing away at every surface of it.
What size? First, get or make a chart of points converted to decimal inches. 4 This will allow you to estimate the face size of your intended types, which will always be less than the body size so as to allow for the beard (aside: the dollar sign is usually the sort which is tallest, running near or at full body height).
The punch shank size does not bear any relationship to the type body size. It is related to the size of the face of the sort being cut. It must be larger than the face in both the body height direction ("vertically" on the letter face) and the set width direction ("horizontally" on the face). It must accomodate the width of two slopes: the "talus," which is the slope down from the face which creates the beard on the cast type, and the "long slope" running down from that.
But how much is this? To tell the truth, I don't yet have enough experience to know. I just bought several sizes of W1 bar stock in what appeared to be convenient dimensions, from 1/8" square (for counterpunches! I won't be cutting type this small any time soon) up through 1/2" square or so. For quick reference, 18 points is 0.249" and 24 points is 0.332".
Moxon's method of sizing his punch blanks was different. For types from Great Primer (roughly 18 pt) on up, he has a complex method. He identified several general heights and widths of the letters' faces. Then he makes his punch blanks for sorts which will be counterpunched "about twice the height and twice the thickness" of the face, while he makes the blanks for non-counterpunched sorts of the same dimensions as the face. But from English (roughly 16 pt) on down he simply eyeballs it ("But for smaller bodies ... [get] so many square Rods of Steel, Forged out of about two or three Foot in Length ...; which Rods he elects as near his Body and Sizes as his Judgment will serve him to do.") {Moxon 1683 [1962]}: 102-106.
Fournier (in Carter's translation) simply says that the size should be "suitable" ( {Fournier 1768 [1930]}: 28).
So here are several 36" lengths of W1 tool steel, in miscellaneous square (and one rectangular) sections from 1/8" to 1/2":
The important thing to note is that immediately upon receipt I labeled each piece (no, I didn't miss one in the middle - its designation is not facing the camera). Having been a scrounger of scrap metals for decades, I cannot overemphasize the importance of this. There are two kinds of metals in your shop: labeled metals of known alloy and unknown metals. The first are always useful. The second may be useful, or may be the cause of trouble. Tool steels, especially, should be labeled. They're relatively expensive, and you cannot tell them from un-hardenable regular steels just by looking. (Neither can you rely upon any color coding which might be used by your supplier. Every supplier's color coding can be different.)
The other point to make is that when you go to cut off a piece, cut it off from the end opposite the label.
I'll be keeping a Progressive List of Punchcutting Tools The very first tool of the punchcutter in steel (not counting a computer to search the Internet for suppliers) is a marker of some kind which is capable of writing permanently on steel.
This section is so simple that most would ignore it: just put the square steel rod in a vise and cut of a section. I, of course, will make a much bigger deal of it.
Our primary authorities are of no help to us here. The hacksaw (or indeed any metal cutting saw) is unknown to Moxon, though he writes of saws for wood. Moxon forged his larger punch blanks to size. End even today a blacksmith will never saw anything when it can be cut, hot or cold, with a chisel. For his smaller sizes, made from rods of steel: "with the edge of a Half-round File, or a Cold-Chisel, [he] cuts them into so many Lengths as he wants Punches." {Moxon 1683 [1962]}: 106.
The Oxford English Dictionary isn't of much help with regard to the origins of the hacksaw. Its first citation is quite late, from 1867. However, anyone who has struggled with a hacksaw will be unsurprised to note that one of the base meanings it gives for "hack" is to "mutilate by jagged cuts".
Fournier doesn't mention the operation at all, but the hacksaw must have been known to him. It is shown at least as early as 1741, in Thiout's Traité de l'Horlogerie {Thiout 1741}: Planche 3. So while a film depicting Moxon with a hacksaw would be anachronistic, one showing Fournier at the same operation would not.
In modern terms, if you wish to "mutilate by jagged cuts" your metal bar precisely, you'll continue your list of punchcutter's tools with these four or five:
1. Water is not the only medium for quenching steel. Oil is probably more common, and many standard tool steels are "quenched" simply by letting them cool in air. More exotic media, such as molten sodium, are also used.
2. In particular, we might wish to take advantage of advances in metallurgy and select a tool steel specifically developed for applications such as punching. S7 tool steel, for example, is an air-hardening tool steel that is listed as being shock-resistant and tough and is suggested (by vendors literature - do a search online) for use in punches, chisels, and metalworking dies. Against this one would have to balance ease of working (old fashioned W1 is generally cited as having "superior machinability over all the other tool steels" (or at least the SpeedyMetals.com website says so). Also, S7 is about twice the cost of W1 and is available in fewer stock sizes.
3. Various online suppliers cite this specification for W1: Carbon 0.95 - 1.05, Manganese 0.3 - 0.4%, Silicon 0.1 - 0.25, Chromium 0.15, Molybendum 0.1, Tungsten 0.15, Vanadium 0.1, Phosophorus 0.025 and Sulfur 0.025. So basically it's a high(ish)-carbon plain tool steel. The other alloying elements are not contributing significantly to its properties. (Phosphorus and sulfur are, I think, considered impurities and these should be maximum values.)
4. You must use real printers' points of 0.018,4", not "postscript" points of 0.013,9" There are several tables online at: Point and Pica Conversion Tables.
See also Making Matrices: An Annotated Bibliography . The section here contains only those references whose use is specific to this present web page.
{Thiout 1741} Thiout [l'aine], Antoine. Traité de l'horlogerie, méchanique et pratique approuvé par l'Academie royale des sciences. Vol 1. Paris: Moette et al., 1741.
Thiout's Traité has been digitized several times. See for example the "e-rara" collection of the ETH Zurich: http://www.e-rara.ch/zut/doi/10.3931/e-rara-11046
Orientation: If you just came here from some other part of the Web and are wondering what is going on... This is a small part of a series of pages describing my own experiences in making typographical punches by hand (to be used in the process of making printing type for traditional letterpress printing). This present page is a part of a sequence on Preparing the Punch Blank. This is part of a larger online "book" (of a kind) devoted to Making Matrices. For a list of all of the places on CircuitousRoot where typographical punchcutting is discussed, including an extensively annotated bibliography, see Hand Punchcutting in Steel.
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