The groove (8) is a result of the dressing process shown earlier, while the nick (6) is cast into the type to allow the compositor to ensure that all his letters are right side up. The two types at lower left are italic sorts with "kerns", parts of the letters projecting over its own body and resting on the shoulder of the next letter; kerns are normal in italic and script letters. Often when kerning would be difficult type founders would double letters into ligatures: ff, fi, fl, ffi, and ffl are still commonly made from a single matrix, even on keyboard typecasting machines. The parts numbered on the illustration are:
