"Making Books" video from 1947
1947 film about how a book is made. It starts with the writer -- "This man in an author. He writes stories. He's just finished writing a story. He thinks many people will like to read it. So, he must have the story made into a book." -- and ends with a finished, bound book.
Along the way, we are taken on a tour through the printing and bindery process. In a factory full of machinery that would give an OSHA inspector a heart attack, we see a typesetter making lines of type from molten metal, a composer laying out the lines of type, a workman fitting the lines into metal frames, an operator converting the soft metal plates into wax plates, another worker dipping the wax plates into a tank filled with copper to form a solid plate, another worker cutting the plates into individual page plates with a sharp saw, another workman (he's called the "ready man") preparing the plates for printing by placing 64 pages at a time in the printing press bed, a workman examining the printed sheets, another worker inserting the sheets into a folding machine, another man to check the folder to make sure the pages are folded in the right order, a room filled with "girls" in the gathering room stacking the folders in piles and sorting them in bins, another group of girls taking the assembled folders to a machine that sews them together with thread, other workers trimming the sewed folders with sharp knives, An operator over seeing a machine making covers from paperboard, a machine that gluing cloth to the paperboard, a machine stamping the title of the book on the cover, and a machine gluing covers to the book. Whew!
(via Hang Fire Books)
the latest
latest episodes
Wow, that is beautiful. I can see that being my career in a former life.
Back in 2000, I took a tour of San Francisco's Arion Press. At the time, they were printing an oversized lectern bible, and the old warehouse facility they occupied on Bryant Street was a cramped and glorious beehive of lead, ink, paper, and skill. Type was cast, laid out and blocked into the pages on tables that looked like they were from the original Grabhorn Press of 1919.
The shop printed one signature at a time, storing the finished pages off site due to the size of the project. After each single spread was printed, all the lead was melted down again to re-cast the next set of pages.
It was great to see their process, and meet these wonderful printers working at their craft. It was a trip back in time, until I looked down and under one of the benches was an old, dusty, lead spattered Mac SE/30! The small beige box was running a simple program on the text to compute the instances of each character, and then telling the monotype casting machine what to pour. I was delighted to see that little buddy still in action.
http://www.arionpress.com/
Future life, more like it.
After the Zombie war, there won't be much work for web design.
I bought a hand press from 1890 and a whole lot of lead type to go with it. Cabinets full. I'm not sure I'll ever do anything with it, but
I'm glad I saved it from the landfill.
Brings back memories... My Grandpa Louie had a printing business that my late Uncle Fred inherited. They had two type making machines; humongous Goldberg-inspired behemoths that utilized large 80 lb. lead(?) bars that inched their way into small smelters, with a typewriter-like keyboard to set the lettering (reversed, of course). Fascinating. When he was done with the type, we would sweep it to a floor hole in the corner where it dropped to the basement where he could melt it down to make new bars for reuse. One of the compelling reasons I ended up in mechanical engineering; my childhood fascination with those machines...
Umm: SPOILERS!
Just because the movie's been out for sixty-one years, doesn't mean we've all seen the ending.
Everything about this film is great; the lucid, simple explanations, the beautifully filmed machinery, everything. Ahhh....
...and am I the only one who's mind's eye kept filling in the missing Crow, Joel, and Tom Servo?
They really went with an unknown cast for this one. Solid narrative but weak character development.
Brings back memories! In high school (1986), I learned how to operate a "small" Heidelberg press in printing class (I'm quite certain that class is no longer taught there, although the school newspaper MIGHT now be printed on the premises on newer equipment. Maybe). In college I used a 4-color lithograph press. My professors and I had no doubt that I could get a job in a print shop after college. Of course, one thing neither they nor I had learned was the recent creation of a new (and oxymoronic) "word" called "over-qualified"... So the print shops in the area dwindled away (The only one left actually farms the work out to India), while I struggled to find work.
I've illustrated a few published books, and wrote/illustrated one that's been published ("Jenna of Erdovon"), and prior to the official printing taking place (in Hong Kong; there are no more local printers who can manage color) I hand-made a number of copies for test sales. Occasionally I get to do school visits, and when I show them a hand-made copy, they are amazed. I also inform them that there are far more steps to this process than most people realize!
Awesome! Truly a "wonderful thing."
In a previous life, in a previous state, I worked in a Library Bindery. Those are the folks who fix broken bindings or gather magazines together into a bound volume. Closest my dad ever came to being cool was finding out that he knew Isaac Asimov, because the Good Doctor used that bindery to gather his 'Collected Works of Asimov' together two or three times a year. Asimov would sing opera in the office, waiting for someone to help him pick up or leave off his job for them.
When I was going to go to Noreascon I, they offered to let me give him his latest volumes at the convention. I thought that the possibility of him misplacing them at the hotel was a bad thing, so I passed on that.
I worked at the place for two and half years, and later worked at another bindery in downtown Boston. That was the place I was working when I was sloppy with the board cutting one afternoon, and lost the end of my left middle finger.
I LOVED that. The voice, the machines, the efficiency... everything was perfect. Reminds me why I used to watch these clips on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and hope that one day I'd be lucky enough to work in a factory like that.
My grandfather owned a small town weekly newspaper, and I grew up around the type drawers, linotype machine, and huge black printing press. My mom worked the linotype when she was in high school, and she carried scars on her arms from hot lead spatters all of her life. Printing used to be dangerous!
That was So Fun! Thanks for the tip, Dove, for the Mr. Rogers clips. I look forwaard to viewing them, too: http://pbskids.org/rogers/R_house/picpic.htm
Arion Press (#2) printed my wedding invitations (about 14 years ago)
I am printing geek...
My fun project over the past summer has been reconditioning a 1922 Intertype, virtually identical to the typecaster in the video. It's great fun to operate, and possibly the most complicated mechanical device I've ever seen. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that you can still order any of the parts as NOS!
@ Cochituate - Harcourt or Acme?
@fenderbasher - That was probably a monotype or linotype machine and yes, that would have been a lead ingot/(pig?)
I *loved* this video. I'm heading off to a library binding conference next week and I'll be sure to be passing this little gem around.
My family continues to operate a library bindery where we still do hand work and in some respects the shop in the video is more automated than we are.
Ah books, aren't they marvelous?! I was a bookbinder in the early 80's. We mostly bound legal documents for law firms. You know, those books in the book cases in law offices. The only machines we used were for sewing the "signatures", applying glue to the cover material, and huge cutters to trim the edges.
It was the most satisfying job I've ever had in some respects.