Folks who collect books that were printed prior to the advent of steam powered presses, computers and the like often have no real idea of what printing a page of a book actually entailed in centuries past. They know that such printed pages are often very attractive (such as Aldus Manutius' 1499 edition of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the copy below held by the University of Glasgow)...
...and most such collectors have at least a vague idea of how such pages actually were placed and printed on a press (the image below, of printing via an early screw press, is via Wikipedia):
Many such collectors will even know that such printing required metal type that had been cast by hand (the image below is via Discern Communications)...
...but they are less likely to know how such metal type actually was "put together" so the page of a book could be printed.
Fortunately, this is easily explained if one has a good illustration. As explained by the good folks at Bedplate Press (from whence the image below also derives),
A rectangular metal frame called a chase was the basis of printing for many years. The type was placed on a flat surface called a stone and clamped into postition.
Th[e] photograph shows the bottom right hand corner of a chase into which type - in this case lines of type (sometimes called slugs) - spaced with various pieces of "furniture" has been clamped.
Furniture was normally wood but sometimes strips of metal were used. Quoins (pronounced "coins") were used to secure the whole assembly. Sometimes two wedges were set against each other to tighten the forme and to keep the furniture parallel to the side of the chase.
In the picture spring loaded quoins are being used. When a quoin spanner is turned in the threaded part of the quoin (the circle with the square recess) the two sections spread to apply pressure to the furniture to keep the whole assembly firm and secure. Turning the quoin spanner in the opposite direction slackens the pressure off and releases the furniture and type.
Once the type was arranged in its final printing position, the level was checked and all quoins were tightened up. The whole chase, complete with its contents, was then transferred to the printing press. In this form the chase and contents were called a "forme". [Ed. note: in the image of the screw press, above, the paper lies atop the forme.]
When done exceptionally well, this allowed the printer to produce some extraordinary pages, such as this. (Simon de Colines was one of the finest printers of the 16th century, as seen from this title, which is the 2nd edition of a work first printed in 1536. The image below is from the copy held by the Cary Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology):
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