Frisket

This article is about the letterpress printing machine component. For the art material mask, see Frisket (art material).

On a sheet-fed letterpress printing machine, a frisket was a sheet of oiled paper which covered the space between the type column or heading (about 1 inch or 2.5 cm in height) and the edge of the paper that was being printed. A guide was a springy metal finger that momentarily pressed on the edge of the sheet of paper to hold it in place for the brief instant while the impression was made. When the press operator took a brayer (an ink roller) to roll over the surface of the type to coat the surface with ink which pressed onto the paper to make an impression, the ink brayer would often coat the "furniture" (wood spacing blocks) or the metal spacers that were between the columns and around the type. To avoid this ink touching the sheet of paper which was being printed or pressed (i.e. Letterpress) the frisket covered the area (space) that was not desired to print. It kept the printed page clean around the type and illustrations.

In the days of Benjamin Franklin (in America), who used a Washington Hand Press, a sheet was printed about the size of a newspaper page. The composed type (hand set) and cuts (pictures or drawings of artwork) were then imposed (placed in their proper position) in a "form" (like an average newspaper page) surrounded by furniture or slugs (varying widths and lengths of wooden or metal spacing material) which were placed within a metal frame called a "chase". When this form within locked up within the chase was inked over with an ink brayer, the frisket (which was mounted on a hinge) was then closed down over the inked form. A sheet of paper was then positioned perfectly (with the help of the above mentioned guides) over the frisket. This was rolled under the press and the impression was pulled or pressed. When the form was rolled back out of the press the printed sheet of paper was removed, the frisket lifted and the form was reinked for another impression. A new frisket had to be cut out by hand for each different page or form; a well-made frisket would last for hundreds or thousands of impressions.