- Joined
- Aug 30, 2009
- Messages
- 756
- Reaction score
- 169
I have a printing office set in 1880's London. Small-scale stuff, like handbills and pamphlets and things like that. Originally, I was thinking about writing about "inky fingers" and such, but when I looked at some photos from the 1920's printing offices, all the men working seemed to have clean hands and clean aprons.
For those of you with experience in manual typesetting, are there any signs someone might carry about with them to indicate that they've been setting type or doing other jobs in such an office? A strong clinging smell of chemicals or ink? (???) Any visual signs on their hands?
Looking on YouTube, I'm seeing bit fat daubers (ink balls?) being used to ink type many of the Colonial-era printing press demonstrations, but I'm seeing ink rolled on in other demonstrations. Does anyone happen to know when rolling ink became more prevalent than daubing it?
For those of you with experience in manual typesetting, are there any signs someone might carry about with them to indicate that they've been setting type or doing other jobs in such an office? A strong clinging smell of chemicals or ink? (???) Any visual signs on their hands?
Looking on YouTube, I'm seeing bit fat daubers (ink balls?) being used to ink type many of the Colonial-era printing press demonstrations, but I'm seeing ink rolled on in other demonstrations. Does anyone happen to know when rolling ink became more prevalent than daubing it?