The ultimate product of manual typecasting were letters, known as sorts for letterpress printing, and the process starts with the installation of a matrix with the impression of a particular glyph into the bottom of the hand mould which is adjusted for the width of the body and locked in preparation for casting. Molten type metal alloy would be carefully poured into a straight-sided vertical cavity at the top of the mould. The type caster would then give the mould a quick shake to aid the flow of type metal into every cavity of the matrix. In practice it was discovered that different glyphs would require different shakes to cast the characters properly. As the casting cooled down and solidified, the mould would be unlocked and the sort removed, ready for later finishing operations and locked again ready for the next character.
