A new exhibition, ‘Capturing Craft: the making of the Baskerville punches’ opened on Wednesday 2 July at The Hive, Birmingham and aims to shine a spotlight on the precision tools used to create the timeless Baskerville typeface – and the legacy behind it.
The exhibition is part of the ‘Small Performances’ project.
As well as showcasing large-scale detailed images of the original Baskerville punches taken by team members in the Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab, University of Cambridge, the free exhibition includes historic tools and contemporary films produced at Birmingham City University’s School of Jewellery which showcase demonstrations of the craft.
The exhibition higlights how the tools Baskerville used to create his typeface all left their marks on the punches, and by decyphering these marks we can start of understand the methods Baskerville used for their manufacture.
Baskerville’s punches started as square lengths of iron/steel bar. The bar needed to be annealed, that is it had to be heated and then cooled to make it less hard and easier to work. To do this, the bar was placed in a blacksmith forge using tongs. When it was white hot and malleable the bar was removed, and surface scale cleaned with a wire brush. In preparation for forging, the 90° corners of the bar were hammered back to create faceted corners; this process reduced the risk of metal fracture and is evident on the body of the punches.
The size of Baskerville’s letters determined the type of forging that was applied by the blacksmith. A very small letter, such as 6-point, required ‘waist-ing’, that is the edges of the bar needed tapering with hammer and anvil to narrow the profile to accommodate the small size of letter. On the other hand, a very large letter, such as 60-point, required ‘upsetting’ to spread and redistribute the metal. When the bar was placed vertically in the leg vice and hammered from above, it forced the metal downwards and this created a witness mark as the metal bulges over the vice jaws. The jaws which securely gripped the bar had a cross hatched surface which have left a mirror impression on the shank of the punch.
Baskerville’s punches were cut to size by using a blacksmith’s cutting tool. All four sides of the bar were hammered to create a pinch point; this reduced the width of the bar allowing a twist of the tongs to release the punch. The cut end of the Baskerville punches exhibits a tent like form which are the hammer ends for striking the punch into a copper matrix. Collectively the individual witness marks reveal Baskerville’s systematic chain of punch manufacture.
After the bar left the forge they entered Baskerville’s workshop, where he and other craftsmen put the bar through three final stages to produce the punch. Firstly, some of the metal from the sides of the bar had to be filed away to create the supports to hold the letter: this filing was quite rough, but it was followed by a finer file which enabled more precise shaping. Secondly, Baskerville made multiple precise engraving cuts in the metal to create the thick and thin strokes of his letters. When Baskerville was satisfied with the result of the engraving, then the punch was moved onto the final stage: polishing. Polishing provided a smooth surface for Baskerville’s punches and eliminated all the witness marks. They were now ready to be tempered.
Hardening and tempering were used in Baskerville’s workshop to transform the punches into tools. Hardening was a heat treatment process which increased the toughness of Baskerville’s steel punched by holding them at a specific temperature, depending on the composition of the metal. The punches were then quenched to rapidly cool and arrest the process. This was followed by tempering, which was also a heat treatment process, where the punches were reheated to a lower temperature. This transformed the metal by relieving the internal stress, reducing brittleness and increasing toughness and ductility. Baskerville used the tempering colours of straw yellow, dark yellow, brown, purple and blue as a visual guide to estimate the temperature.
All this is evidenced on the bodies of the punches and captured in detail in the photographs on display.
The exhibition runs until 30 July at The Hive, Vittoria Steet, Birmingham