Johannes Gutenberg's New Casting

The printing press was an interesting and world changing machine that was used for the mass production of written works for distribution. Such a revolutionary process actually worked through an easy process that included only a few steps. First, every letter had to have been carved into a steel object known as a punch. These punches were eventually hammered into a piece of copper otherwise known as a blank. The blank was used as a mold for a mixture of molten alloys created by Gutenberg who was once a stonecutter and a goldsmith; the mixture consisted of lead, antimony and bismuth. This mixture of metals created an alloy that was easily cooled and handled, but strong enough not to wear down over repeated use. In their creation, the base sizes for the letters had to be determined and marked out ahead of time. Wider letters had wider basis, such as the difference between a capital z and a lower case l. The blocks

The exploration of the printing press originally came from the Chinese. The Chinese were the ones to first invent the woodblock printing process and even tried to experiment with movable wood types. According to the (Background Essay) it claims “with 50,000 characters, carving each character was impossible.” The English language only had 26 letters, but that still did not make the written communication easy. A small book would take months to complete and a book the size of the Bible took years. In 1455 Gutenberg was

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the year 1706 to Abiah and Josiah Franklin. At the age of twelve his father began training him to be a tallow chandler and a soap boiler to no avail. He was then sent to apprentice his older brother, James, in the making of a Boston newspaper called the New England Courant. Franklin found interest in working at the print shop and in 1722, when James was jailed for printing critical remarks on authorities, he published the paper on his own and decided that he was going to establish himself as a writer and printer elsewhere. He left for Philadelphia, arriving in October of 1723, where he would begin his printing journey. Throughout his printing and writing career he produced many hoaxes, such as witch trials, illegitimate children and mistresses of royalty, and war stories. He also wrote, in his almanac, about a fictional character named Poor Richard who offered proverbs and sayings that showed Franklin’s crude humor. Though he wrote mostly in his earlier years of life, Franklin continued to write till the day he died.

The earliest printing in China was the block printing method in the first Century B.C., where the individual sheets of paper were pressed against wooden blocks that had text and illustrations carved into them. This process could print hundreds and even thousands of copies, this technology played a significant role in promoting the spread of culture. A block carver named Bi Sheng made movable types with clay during the period from1004 to 1048. This method each type was carved with one character and the types could be set independently according to contents of different articles. After printing, the movable types could be reused and this improved technology is called movable-type printing. (LAN, 2008)

In 1436 Johannes Gutenberg invented the Printing Press, which had a major impact on both the Renaissance and printing today, however there other movable type systems invented before Gutenberg’s Printing

Each block was its own letter or character and it was very inefficient. This method of printing is known as movable type. This technique was used in Asia hundreds of years before Gutenberg. Gutenberg used a casting and metal alloy system to make movable type much more efficient.

His mother was Else Wyrich, the daughter of an owner of a store. He was born sometime in the early 14th century in Mainz and is presumed to have died around 1468 in Mainz. Johannes Gutenberg was an inventor, blacksmith, goldsmith, and publisher. Johannes had many talents and skills that had he learned from his parents. He engaged in such crafts as gem cutting, bookmaking, and metalworking.

1428 his family was exiled and left to Strasbourg, France, and he had a little interest in printing but not much. In 1438 is when he really started to become interested in printing and experimented

In the 700s they made block printing and it was carved on a single block

In 1439 Johannes Gutenberg invented the first movable type printing press. The design was based off of the screw press which had a “matrix” where

Unfortunately, not much is known about Gutenberg’s early life. He was born between 1394 and 1400 to a wealthy family of goldsmiths and coin minters, in present day southwest Germany (new) Historians are unsure, but because of Gutenberg’s knowledge of Latin scholars believe it’s likely that he attended university. It’s unlikely that Gutenberg ever married

Johannes Gutenberg was born circa 1395, in Mainz, Germany. He started experimenting with printing by 1438. In 1450 Gutenberg obtained backing from the financier, Johann Fust, whose impatience and other factors led to Gutenberg's loss of his establishment to Fust several years later. Gutenberg's masterpiece, and the first book ever printed in Europe from movable type, is the “Forty-Two-Line” Bible, completed no later than 1455.Born into a modest merchant family in Mainz, Germany, circa 1395, Johannes Gutenberg’s work as an inventor and printer would have a major impact on communication and learning worldwide. He was the third son of Freile zum Gensfleisch and his second wife, Else Wirick zum Gutenberg, whose maiden name Johann later adopted.

Printmaking is a work of art made up of ink on paper and existing in multiple examples, moreover, a print is created through an indirect transfer process when the artist starts by drawing a composition on another surface by placing a sheet of paper in contact with the drawn surface and then is run through a printing press. By doing a work of art in this way is that numerous impressions can be made as new papers and can be sent through the press in the same way. In this case, the artist should decide how many to make and that total number of impressions is called an edition, which is then signed by the artist. For the reason that there is more than one example, many people may have these prints.

Gutenberg’s press, made of wood, may have been inspired by winepresses of his time. The type was made of a metal alloy with a low melting temperature. Despite that, the metal alloy was strong enough to have pressure applied to it in the press. Research indicated that Gutenberg used a sand-casting

While he was printing books in Mainz, word was getting out all over Europe about how great this invention was. The letters were clearly legible from the metal types he used. Before he died, printing presses like the one’s he invented were being used all over Europe to spread the ideas of many other happy people.