This video shows a sofer writing a sefer Torah. This sofer has a good hand, writes at a nice pace, and can ask a decent price. But one can also tell how the sefer Torah industry has commercialised the process, allowing for better productivity.
Note the following:
1) The sofer is writing on a light table, which means he does not have to worry about planning the spacing and can just trace over the letters. This saves a lot of time. This also minimises mistakes and saves time of repairs.
2) The quill is a plastic kulmos with a repository, which means you need to dip it into the ink every few lines instead of every few letters. Also you do not need to sharpen it and make new quills. Both of these save time.
3) The klaf today is more refined and smooth, easier to write on. Not uneven and rough like the old days. I'm sure lots of "mei klaf" is added. This enhances writing speed and quality of writing.
4) Double sirtut. Again this enhances quality and neatness.
5) The tagin / …
30 inch or 30cm?
ReplyDeleteIf it's 30 inches , which is massive, just take a 15cm mezuzah and just multiply everything by 5 (sirtut, gilyonos, kulmus size etc)
DeleteI'm sorry, I meant 30 cm. thanks
ReplyDeleteThe formula of the size of the line in a mezuza is height/23.5 so in this case 30/23.5 = 1.276 cm. The top gilyon is the same as a regular line and from the bottom sirtut the space of 1.5 lines.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning - the space that equals somewhere between 3.5 to 4 lines so in this case between 4.46 to 5.1 cm, and at the end just whats needed for hekef gvil but it is better to leave more - in this case I would say about 1.5-2 cm.
The length of the line itself is very individual, depending on how long (or short) is your writing. In one klaf store I once asked they told me that they make it 24 cm but I personally think its to much. I tried once on a piece of klaf and I got to 21-22 cm. The best thing is to try yourself: prepare a kulmus of the correct size and write line number 8, 11 or 21 (those are "standard" size lines) and see what are the results. then see if you can write in that length line 3 or 16 ( the "squeezed" lines) and adjust accordingly.