composing stick

a portable, adjustable, usually metal tray that the compositor holds in one hand while placing in it type gathered with the other hand.

Also called job stick.

Origin of composing stick

First recorded in 1670–80

Being expert with the composing-stick, he was readily engaged at good wages by his old employer, Keimer.

Benjamin Franklin |John Torrey Morse, Jr.
Thus we now have the expressions: a "composing-room," a "composing-stick," etc.

Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) |Elbert Hubbard
The whole process is completed by setting up the types in a printer's composing-stick, and tying them up with packthread.

Popular Technology; Volume 2 |Edward Hazen
He flushed up as Reginald approached, and put down his composing-stick to shake hands with him.

Reginald Cruden |Talbot Baines Reed

I know many actors who are practical printers, fellows who can wield a composing-stick as deftly as a fighting sword.

My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson |George Thompson

composing stick

printing a metal holder of adjustable width in which a compositor sets a line of type at a time by hand; now rarely used