GL glNewList Render list seemingly ignoring me resetting the scale

As the title says, I'm having a bit of trouble resetting the scale on my GL List, so when the next one is called by the rendering code using the list, it's smaller than it should be, this causes it to keep getting smaller until it fades out of existence.

Here's my code, without the render commands. To fully demonstrate what I've tried I'll simplify the code first. I'm making custom font code modifications for Minecraft Beta 1.7.3, which works perfectly except this ONE part... which is scaling the font correctly with multiple images. Anyways, let's go.

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        for(int i1 = 0; i1 < ChatAllowedCharacters.allowedCharacters.length(); i1++)
{
updateFontImage(i1, renderengine, tex);
fontTextureName = getTextureId(i1, renderengine);
GL11.glNewList(fontDisplayLists + i1 + (i1 > 256 ? 512 : 0), 4864 /*GL_COMPILE*/);
GL11.glBindTexture(3553, fontTextureName);
tessellator.startDrawingQuads();
int l1 = (i1 % 16) * (textureWidth/16);
int k2 = (i1 / 16) * (textureWidth/16);
float f = (float)(textureWidth/16);
float f1 = 0.0F;
float f2 = 0.0F;
tessellator.addVertexWithUV(0.0D, 0.0F + f, 0.0D, (float)l1 / (float)(textureWidth) + f1, ((float)k2 + f) / (float)(textureWidth) + f2);
tessellator.addVertexWithUV(0.0F + f, 0.0F + f, 0.0D, ((float)l1 + f) / (float)(textureWidth) + f1, ((float)k2 + f) / (float)(textureWidth) + f2);
tessellator.addVertexWithUV(0.0F + f, 0.0D, 0.0D, ((float)l1 + f) / (float)(textureWidth) + f1, (float)k2 / (float)(textureWidth) + f2);
tessellator.addVertexWithUV(0.0D, 0.0D, 0.0D, (float)l1 / (float)(textureWidth) + f1, (float)k2 / (float)(textureWidth) + f2);
tessellator.draw();
GL11.glTranslatef(charWidth[i1], 0.0F, 0.0F);
GL11.glEndList();
}

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If you're unaware of what Minecraft's code is like, let me explain. The tessellator code is what's ordering the Tesselator to draw, which is, to my understanding, essentially an OpenGL helper that simplifies drawing with OpenGL. It's incredibly clever in my opinion.
updateFontImage and fontTextureName is just what I used to get the font texture images.

I am sure all of the code is within the render list start and end commands, and not before or after. Yes, different values are supposed to come up, but for testing where I need to put the commands I'm just using .5 for now to ensure all the code is the same no matter what images are used, as a control for testing.
So, I have tried:

• Putting a GL11.glScaled 1, 1, 1 at the beginning of the list and the .5, .5, .5 at the end after the tessellator.draw.
• Putting a GL11.glScaled 1, 1, 1 at the beginning of the list and a .5, .5, .5 at the end before the tessellator.draw.
• Doing the same as above, but with the .5, .5, .5 at the beginning at the 1, 1, 1 at the end instead.
• Doing all the same as above, but putting the first glScaled commands after startDrawingQuads, instead of before.
• I've even tried "countering" the .5 .5 .5 by putting a 1.5 1.5 1.5 right after it... no dice! How!?
• I've made sure trying to put the end command before the translate at the bottom, then after it. Still nothing.

No matter how hard I try, loading up the game, each letter rendered is smaller than the last as if I never tried to reset the scale. How do I fix this? I'm completely stumped. I know that each letter renders separately correctly as each letter is able to be assigned its own font image.

Thanks in advance for answers. I'll try what anyone tells me, or tell them if I've already tried it and forgot to put it in the above list.

For reference, here's the silly result pretty much everything I've tried has given.Silly Text

The tessellator quads get bigger with image size, and the game originally fixed this by scaling them down for larger font sheets. However, I can instead force it to render at the default size and higher-res letters fit in just fine.