CALICO-PRINTING (Impression d’Indiennes, Fr.;Zeugdruckerei, Germ.) is the art of impressing cotton cloth with topical dyes of more or less permanence. Of late years, silk and woollen fabrics have been made the subjects of a similar style of dyeing. Linens were formerly stained with various coloured designs, but since the modern improvements in the manufacture of cotton cloth they are seldom printed, as they are both dearer, and produce less beautiful work, because flax possesses less affinity than cotton for colouring matters.This art is of very ancient date in India, and takes its English name from Calicut, a district where it has been practised with great success from time immemorial. The Egyptians, also, appear from Pliny’s testimony to have practised at a remote era some of the most refined processes of topical dyeing. “Robes and white veils,” says he, “are painted in Egypt in a wonderful way. They are first imbued, not with dyes, but with dye-absorbing drugs, by which, though they seem to be unaltered, yet, when immersed for a little while in a cauldron of the boiling dye-liquor, they are found to become painted. Yet, as there is only one colour in the cauldron, it is marvellous to see many colours imparted to the robe, in consequence of the influence of the excipient drug. Nor can the dye be washed out. A cauldron, which would of itself merely confuse the colours of cloths previously dyed, is thus made to impart several pigments from a single dye-stuff,painting as it boils.” The last expressionpingitque dum coquit, is perfectly graphic and descriptive of calico-printing.The cotton chintz counterpanes of great size, calledpallampoors, which have been manufactured in Madras from the earliest ages, have in like manner peculiar dye-absorbing drugs applied to them with the pencil, as also wax, to protect certain parts of the surface from the action of the dye, and are afterwards immersed in a staining liquor, which, when wax is applied, is usually the cold indigo-vat, but without the wax is a hot liquor similar to the Egyptian. M. Koechlin Roder, of Mulhouse, brought home lately fromIndia a rich collection of cloths in this state of preparation, which I saw in the cabinet of theSociété Industrielleof that interesting emporium of calico-printing. The native implements for applying the wax and colouring bases are placed alongside of the cloths, and form a curious picture of primeval art. There is among other samples an ancientpallampoor, five French yards long, and two and a half broad, said to be the labour of Hindoo princesses, which must have taken a lifetime to execute. The printing machinery of great Britain has begun to supersede, for these styles of work, the cheapest hand labour of India.Calico-printing has been for several hundred years practised by the oriental methods in Asia Minor and the Levant, but it was unknown as an English art till 1696, when a small print-ground was formed upon the banks of the Thames, near Richmond, by a Frenchman; probably a refugee from his own country, in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Some time afterwards, a considerable printing work was established at Bromley Hall, in Essex, and several others sprung up successively in Surrey, to supply the London shops with chintzes, their import from India having been prohibited by act of parliament in 1700. The silk and woollen weavers, indeed, had all along manifested the keenest hostility to the use of printed calicoes, whether brought from the East or made at home. In the year 1680 they mobbed the India House in revenge for some large importations then made of the chintzes of Malabar. They next induced the government, by incessant clamours, to exclude altogether the beautiful robes of Calicut from the British market. But the printed goods, imported by the English and Dutch East India companies, found their way into this country, in spite of the excessive penalties annexed to smuggling, and raised a new alarm among the manufacturing population of Spitalfields. The sapient legislators of that day, intimidated, as would appear, by the East London mobs, enacted in 1720 an absurd sumptuary law, prohibiting thewearing of all printed calicoes whatsoever, either of foreign or domestic origin. This disgraceful enactment, worthy of the meridian of Cairo or Algiers, proved not only a death blow to rising industry in this ingenious department of the arts, but prevented the British ladies from attiring themselves in the becoming drapery of Hindostan. After an oppressive operation of ten years, this act was repealed by a partially enlightened set of senators, who were then pleased to permit what they called British calicoes, if made of linen warp, with merely weft of thehatedcotton, to be printed and worn, upon paying a duty of no less than sixpence the square yard. Under this burden, English calico-printing could not be expected to make a rapid progress. Accordingly, even so lately as the year 1750, no more than 50,000 pieces of mixed stuff were printed in Great Britain, and that chiefly in the neighbourhood of London; whereas a single manufacturer, Mr. Coates of Manchester, now-a-days will turn off nearly twenty times that quantity, and there are very many others who manufacture several hundred thousand pieces per annum. It was not till about 1766 that this art migrated into Lancashire, where it has since taken such extraordinary development; but it was only after 1774 that it began to be founded upon right principles, in consequence of the repeal of that part of the act of 1730 which required the warp to be made of linen yarn. Henceforth the printer, though still saddled with a heavy duty of 3d.the square yard, was allowed to apply his colours to a homogeneous web, instead of the mixed fabric of linen and cotton substances, which differ in their affinities for dyes.France pursued for some time a similar false policy with regard to calico-printing, but she emerged sooner from the mists of manufacturing monopoly than England. Her avowed motive was to cherish the manufacture of flax, a native product, instead of that of cotton, a raw material, for which prejudice urged that money had to be exported. Her intelligent statesmen of that day, fully seventy years ago, replied, that the money expended in the purchase of cotton was the produce of French industry, beneficially employed, and they therefore took immediate measures to put the cotton fabrics upon a footing of equality. Meanwhile the popular prejudices became irritated to such a degree, by the project of permitting the free manufacture and sale of printed cottons, that every French town possessed of a chamber of commerce made the strongest remonstrances against it. The Rouen deputies declared to the government, “that the intended measure would throw its inhabitants into despair, and make a desert of the surrounding country;” those of Lyons said, “the news had spread terror through all its work-shops:” Tours “foresaw a commotion likely to convulse the body of the state:” Amiens said, “that the new law would be the grave of the manufacturing industry of France;” and Paris declared that “her merchants came forward to bathe the throne with their tears upon that inauspicious occasion.”The government persisted in carrying its truly enlightened principles into effect, and with so manifest advantage to the nation, as to warrant the inspector-general of manufactures to make, soon afterwards, the following appeal to those prejudiced bodies:—“Will any of you now deny that the fabrication of printed cottons has occasioned a vast extension of the industry of France, by giving profitable employment to a great manyhands in spinning, weaving, bleaching, and printing the colours? Look only at the dyeing department, and say whether it has not done more good to France in a few years than many of your other manufactures have in a century?”The despair of Rouen has been replaced by the most signal prosperity in the cotton trade, and especially in printed calicoes, for the manufacture of which it possesses 70 different establishments, producing upwards of a million of pieces of greater average size and price than the English. In the district of the Lower Seine, round that town, there are 500 cotton factories of different kinds, which give employment to 118 thousand operatives of all orders, and thus procure a comfortable livelihood to probably not less than half a million of people.The repeal, in 1831, of the consolidated duty of 31⁄2d.per square yard upon printed calicoes in Great Britain is one of the most judicious acts of modern legislation. By the improvements in calico-printing, due to the modern discoveries and inventions in chemistry and mechanics, the trade had become so vast as to yield in 1830 a revenue of 2,280,000l.levied upon 8,596,000 of pieces, of which, however, about three fourths were exported, with a drawback of 1,579,000l.2,281,512 pieces were consumed in that year at home. When the expenses of collection were deducted, only 350,000l.found their way into the exchequer, for which pitiful sum thousands of frauds and obstructions were committed against the honest manufacturer. This reduction of duty enables the consumer to get this extensive article of clothing from 50 to 80 per cent. cheaper than before, and thus places a becoming dress within the reach of thousands of handsome females in the humbler ranks of life. Printed goods, which in 1795 were sold for two shillings and three-pence the yard, may be bought at present for eight-pence. In fact a woman may now purchase the materials of a pretty gown for two shillings. The repeal of the tax has been no less beneficial to the fair dealers, by putting an end to the contraband trade, formerly pursued to an extent equally injurious to them and the revenue. It has, moreover, emancipated a manufacture, eminently dependent upon taste, science, and dexterity, from the venal curiosity of petty excisemen, by whom private improvements, of great value to the inventor, were in perpetual jeopardy of being pirated and sold to any sordid rival. The manufacturer has now become a free agent, a master of his time, his workmen, and his apparatus; and can print at whatever hour he may receive an order; whereas he was formerly obliged to wait the convenience of the excise officer, whose province it was to measure and stamp the cloth before it could be packed,—an operation fraught with no little annoyance and delay. Under the patronage of parliament, it was easy for needy adventurers to buy printed calicoes, because they could raise such a sum by drawbacks upon the export of one lot as would go far to pay for another, and thus carry on a fraudulent system of credit, which sooner or later merged in a disastrous bankruptcy. Meanwhile the goods thus obtained were pushed off to some foreign markets, for which they were, possibly, not suited, or where they produced, by their forced sales a depreciation of all similar merchandize, ruinous to them and who meant to pay for his wares.The principles of calico-printing have been very profoundly studied by many of the French manufacturers, who generally keep a chemist, who has been educated in the Parisian schools of science, constantly at work, making experiments upon colours in a well-mounted laboratory. In that belonging to M. Daniel Kœchlin, of Mulhausen, there are upwards of 3000 labelled phials, filled with chemical reagents, and specimens subservient to dyeing. The great disadvantage under which the French printers labour is the higher price they pay for cotton fabrics, above that paid by the English printers. It is this circumstance alone which prevents them from becoming very formidable rivals to us in the markets of the world. M. Barbet, deputy and mayor of Rouen, in his replies to the ministerial commission of inquiry, rates the disadvantage proceeding from that cause at 2 francs per piece, or about 5 per cent. in value. In the annual report of theSociété Industrielleof Mulhausen, made in December, 1833, the number of pieces printed that year in Alsace is rated at 720,000, to which if we add 1,000,000 for the produce of the department of the Lower Seine, and 280,000 for that of St. Quentin, Lille, and the rest of France, we shall have for the total amount of this manufacture 2,000,000 of pieces, equivalent to nearly 2,400,000 pieces English; for the French piece usually measures 331⁄2aunes, = 41 yards nearly; and it is also considerably broader than the English pieces upon an average. It is therefore probable that the home consumption of France in printed goods is equal in quantity, and superior in value, to that of England. With regard to the comparative skill of the workmen in the two countries, M. Nicholas Kœchlin, deputy of the Upper Rhine, says, that one of his foremen, who worked for a year in a print-field in Lancashire, found little or no difference between them in that respect. The English wages are considerably higher than the French. The machines for multiplying production, which for some time gave us a decided advantage, are now getting into very general use among our neighbours. In my recent visit to Mulhausen, Rouen, and their environs, I had an opportunity of seeing many printing establishments mounted with all the resources of the most refined mechanisms.The calico-printing of this country still labours under the burden of considerable taxes upon madder and gallipoli oil, which have counteracted the prosperity of our Turkey red styles of work, and caused them to nourish at Elberfeld, and some other places on the continent, whither a good deal of the English yarns are sent to be dyed, then brought back, and manufactured into ginghams, checks, &c., or forwarded directly thence to our Russian customers. This fact places our fiscal laws in the same odious light as the facility of pirating printer’s patterns with impunity does our chancery laws.Before cloth can receive good figured impressions its surface must be freed from fibrous down bySingeing, and be rendered smooth by theCalender. See these articles. They are next bleached, with the exception of those destined for Turkey red. SeeBleachingandMadder. After they are bleached, dried, singed, and calendered, they are lapped round in great lengths of several pieces, stitched endwise together, by means of an apparatus called, in Manchester, acandroy, which bears on its front edge a rounded iron bar, transversely grooved to the right and left from the centre, so as to spread out the web as it is drawn over it by the rotation of the lapping roller. See a figure of this bar subservient to thecylinder printing-machine.Four different methods are in use for imprinting figures upon calicoes: the first is by small wooden blocks, on whose face the design is cut, which are worked by hand; the second is by larger wood-cut blocks, placed in either two or three planes, standing at right angles to each other, called a Perrotine, from the name of its inventor; the third is by flat copper plates, a method now almost obsolete; and the fourth is by a system of copper cylinders, mounted in a frame of great elegance, but no little complexity, by which two, three, four, or even five colours may be printed on in rapid succession by the mere rotation of the machine driven by the agency of steam or water. The productive powers of this printing automaton are very great, amounting for some styles to a piece in the minute, or a mile of cloth in the hour. The fifth colour is commonly communicated by means of what is called a surface cylinder, covered with wooden figures in bas-relief, which, by rotation, are applied to a plane of cloth imbued with the thickened mordants.The hand blocks are made of sycamore or pear-tree wood, or of deal faced with these woods, and are from two to three inches thick, nine or ten inches long, and five broad, with a strong box handle on the back for seizing them by. The face of the block is either carved in relief into the desired design, like an ordinary wood-cut, or the figure is formed by the insertion edgewise into the wood of narrow slips of flattened copper wire. These tiny fillets, being filed level on the one edge, are cut or bent into the proper shape, and forced into the wood by the taps of a hammer at the traced lines of the configuration. Their upper surfaces are now filed flat, and polished into one horizontal plane, for the sake of equality of impression. As the slips are of equal thickness in their whole depth, from having been made by running the wire through between the steel cylinders of a flatting mill, the lines of the figure, however much they get worn by use, are always equally broad as at first; an advantage which does not belong to wood-cutting. The interstices between the ridges thus formed are filled up with felt-stuff. Sometimes a delicate part of the design is made by the wood-cutter, and the rest by the insertion of copper slips.The colouring matter, properly thickened, is spread with a flat brush, by a child, upon fine woollen cloth, stretched in a frame over the wax cloth head of a wooden drum or sieve, which floats inverted in a tubful of old paste, to give it elastic buoyancy. The inverted sieve drum should fit the paste tub pretty closely. The printer presses the face of the block on the drum head, so as to take up the requisite quantity of colour, applies it to the surface of the calico, extended upon a flat table covered with a blanket, and then strikes the back of the block with a wooden mallet, in order to transfer the impression fully to the cloth. This is a delicate operation, requiring equal dexterity and diligence. To print a piece of cloth 28 yards long, and 30 inches broad, no less than 672 applications of a block, 9 inches long and 5 inches broad, are requisite for each colour; so that if there are 3 colours, or 3 hands, as the French term it, no less than 2016 applications will be necessary. The blocks have pin-points fixed into their corners, by means of which they are adjusted to their positions upon the cloth, so as to join the different parts of the design with precision. Each printer has a colour-tub placed within reach of his right hand; and for every different colour he must have a separate sieve. Many manufacturers cause their blocks to be made of three layers of wood, two of them being deal with the grain crossed to prevent warping, and the third sycamore for engraving.Work benchThe printing shop is an oblong apartment, lighted with numerous windows at each side, and having a solid table opposite to each window. The tableB,fig.231.is formed of a strong plank of well-seasoned hard wood, mahogany, or marble, with a surface truly plane. Its length is about 6 feet, its breadth 2 feet, and its thickness 3, 4, or 5 inches. It stands on strong feet, with its top about 36 inches above the floor. At one of its ends there are two bracketsCfor supporting the axles of the rollerE, which carries thewhite calico to be printed. The hanging rollersEare laid across joists fixed near the roof of the apartment above the printing shop, the ceiling and floor between them being open bar work, at least in the middle of the room. Their use is to facilitate the exposure, and, consequently, the drying of the printed pieces, and to prevent one figure being daubed by another. Should they come to be all filled, the remainder of the goods must be folded lightly upon the stoolD.The printer stretches a length of the piece upon his tableA B, taking care to place the selvage towards himself, and one inch from the edge. He presents the block towards the end, to determine the width of its impression, and marks this lineA B, by means of his square and tracing point. The spreader now besmears the cloth with the colour, at the commencement, upon both sides of the sieve head; because, if not uniformly applied, the block will take it up unequally. The printer seizes the block in his right hand, and daubs it twice in different directions upon the sieve cloth, then he transfers it to the calico in the lineA B, as indicated by the four pointsa b c d, corresponding to the four pins in the corners of the block. Having done so, he takes another daub of the colour, and makes the pointsa bfall onc d, so as to have at the second stampa′b′, coveringa bandc′d′; and so on, through the rest, as denoted by the accented letters. When one table length is finished, he draws the cloth along, so as to bring a new length in its place.The grounding in, or re-entering (rentrage), of the other colours is the next process. The blocks used for this purpose are furnished with pin-points, so adjusted that, when they are made to coincide with the pin-points of the former block, the design will be correct; that is to say, the new colour will be applied in its due place upon the flower or other figure. The points should not be allowed to touch the white cloth, but should be made to fall upon the stem of a leaf, or some other dark spot. Theserentragesare of four sorts:—1. One for the mordants, as above; 2. one for topical colours; 3. one for the application of reds; and, 4., one for the application of resist pastes or reserves. These styles have superseded the old practice of pencilling.The Perrotine is a machine for executing block-printing by mechanical power; and it performs as much work, it is said, as 20 expert hands. I have seen its operation, in many factories in France and Belgium, in a very satisfactory manner; but I have reason to believe that there are none of them as yet in this country. Three wooden blocks, from 21⁄2to 3 feet long, according to the breadth of the cloth, and from 2 to 5 inches broad, faced with pear-tree wood, engraved in relief, are mounted in a powerful cast-iron frame work, with their planes at right angles to each other, so that each of them may, in succession, be brought to bear upon the face, top, and back of a square prism of iron covered with cloth, and fitted to revolve upon an axis between the said blocks. The calico passes between the prism and the engraved blocks, and receives successive impressions from them as it is successively drawn through by a winding cylinder. The blocks are pressed against the calico through the agency of springs, which imitate the elastic pressure of the workman’s hand. Each block receives a coat of coloured paste from a woollen surface, smeared after every contact with a mechanical brush. One man, with one or two children for superintending the colour-giving surfaces, can turn off about 30 pieces English per day, in three colours, which is the work of fully 20 men and 20 children in block printing by hand. It executes some styles of work to which the cylinder machine, without the surface roller, is inadequate.The copper-plate printing of calico is almost exactly the same as that used for printing engravings on paper from flat plates, and being nearly superseded by the next machine, need not be described.Cylinder printing machineThe cylinder printing machine consists, as its name imports, of an engraved copper cylinder, so mounted as to revolve against another cylinder lapped in woollen cloth, and imbued with a coloured paste, from which it derives the means of communicating coloured impressions to pieces of calico passed over it.Fig.233.will give the reader a general idea of this elegant and expeditious plan of printing. The pattern is engraved upon the surface of a hollow cylinder of copper, or sometimes gun-metal, and the cylinder is forced by pressure upon a strong iron mandrel, which serves as its turning shaft. To facilitate the transfer of the impression from the engraving to the cotton cloth, the latter is lapped round another large cylinder, rendered elastic by rolls of woollen cloth, and the engraved cylinder presses the calico against this elastic cushion, and thereby prints it as it revolves. LetAbe the engraved cylinder mounted upon its mandrel, which receives rotatory motion by wheels on its end, connected with the steam or water power of the factory.Bis a large iron drum or roller, turning in bearings of the end frames of the machine. Against that drum the engraved cylinderAis pressed by weights or screws; the weights acting steadily, by levers, upon its brass bearings. Round the drumBthe endless web of felt or blanket stuffa a, travels in the direction of the arrow, being carried round along with the drumB, which again is turned by the friction of contact with the cylinderA.crepresents a clothed wooden roller, partly plunged into the thickened colour of the troughD D. That roller is also made to bear, with a moderate force, againstA, and thus receives, by friction, in some cases, a movement of rotation. But it is preferable to drive the rollerCfrom the cylinderA, by means of a system of toothed wheels attached to their ends, so that the surface speed of the wooden or paste roller shall be somewhat greater than that of the printing cylinder, whereby the colour will be rubbed, as it were, into the engraved parts of the latter.As the cylinderAis pressed upwards againstB, it is obvious that the bearers of the trough and its roller must be attached to the bearings of the cylinderA, in order to preserve its contact with the colour-rollerC.bis a sharp-edged ruler of gun-metal or steel, called thecolour doctor, screwed between two gun-metal stiffening bars; the edge of which wiper is slightly pressed as a tangent upon the engraved rollerA. This ruler vibrates with a slow motion from side to side, or right to left, so as to exercise a delicate shaving action upon the engraved surface, as this revolves in the direction of the arrow.cis another similar sharp-edged ruler, called thelint doctor, whose office it is to remove any fibres which may have come off the calico in the act of printing, and which, if left on the engraved cylinder, would be apt to occupy some of the lines, or at least to prevent the colour from filling them all. Thislint doctoris pressed very slightly upon the cylinderA, and has no traverse motion.What was stated with regard to the bearers of the colour troughD, namely, that they are connected, and moved up and down together with the bearings of the cylinderA, may also be said of the bearers of the two doctors.The working of this beautiful mechanism may now be easily comprehended. The web of calico, indicated in the figure by the letterd, is introduced or carried in along with the blanket stuffa a, in the direction of the arrow, and is moved onward by the pressure of the revolving cylinderA, so as to receive the impression of the pattern engraved on that cylinder.Before proceeding to describe the more complex calico-machine which prints upon cloth, 3, 4, or 5 colours at one operation, by the rotation of so many cylinders, I shall explain the modern methods of engraving the cylinder, which I am enabled to do by the courtesy of Mr. Locket, of Manchester, an artist of great ingenuity in this department, who politely allowed me to inspect the admirable apparatus and arrangements of his factory.To engrave a copper cylinder 3 or 4 inches in diameter, and from 30 to 36 inches long with the multitude of minute figures which exist in many patterns, would be a very laborious and expensive operation. The happy invention made by Mr. Jacob Perkins, in America, for transferring engravings from one surface to another by means of steel roller dies, was with great judgment applied by Mr. Locket to calico-printing, so long ago as the year 1808, before the first inventor came to Europe with the plan. The pattern is first drawn upon a scale of about 3 inches square, so that this size of figure being repeated a definite number of times, will cover the cylinder. This pattern is next engraved in intaglio upon a roller of softened steel, about 1 inch in diameter, and 3 inches long, so that it will exactly occupy its surface. The engraver aids his eye with alens, when employed at this delicate work. This roller is hardened by heating it to a cherry-red in an iron case containing pounded bone-ash, and then plunging it into cold water; its surface being protected from oxidizement by a chalky paste. This hardened roller is put into a press of a peculiar construction, where, by a rotatory pressure, it transfers its design to a similar roller in the soft state; and as the former was in intaglio, the latter must be in relievo. This second roller being hardened, and placed in an appropriate volutory press, is employed to engrave by indentation upon the full-sized copper cylinder, the whole of its intended pattern. The first roller engraved by hand is called thedie; the second, obtained from it by a process like that of a milling tool, is called themill. By this indentation and multiplication system, an engraved cylinder may be had for seven pounds, which engraved by hand would cost fifty or upwards. The restoration of a worn-out cylinder becomes extremely easy in this way; the mill being preserved, need merely be properly rolled over the copper surface again.At other times, the hard rollerdieis placed in the upper bed of a screw press, not unlike that for coining, while the horizontal bed below is made to move upon strong rollers mounted in a rectangular iron frame. In the middle of that bed a smooth cake or flat disc of very soft iron, about 1 inch thick, and 3 or 4 inches in diameter, is made fast by four horizontal adjusting screws, that work in studs of the bed frame. Thediebeing now brought down by a powerful screw, worked by toothed wheel-work, and made to press with force upon the iron cake, the bed is moved backwards and forwards, causing the roller to revolve on its axles by friction, and to impart its design to the cake. This iron disc is now case-hardened by being ignited amidst horn shavings in a box, and then suddenly quenched in water, when it becomes itself a die in relievo. This disc die is fixed in the upper part of a screw press with its engraved face downwards, yet so as to be movable horizontally by traverse screws. Beneath this inverted bed, sustained at its upper surface by friction-rollers, a copper cylinder 30 inches long, or thereby, is mounted horizontally upon a strong iron mandrel, furnished with toothed wheels at one of its ends, to communicate to it a movement upon its axis through any aliquot arcs of the circle. The disc die being now brought down to bear upon the copper cylinder, this is turned round through an arc corresponding in length to the length of the die; and thus, by the steady downward pressure of the screw, combined with the revolution of the cylinder, the transfer of the engraving is made in intaglio. This is I believe the most convenient process for engraving, by transfer, the copper of a one-cylinder machine. But when 2, 3, or 4 cylinders are to be engraved with the same pattern for a two, three, or four-coloured machine, the die and the mill roller plan of transfer is adopted. In this case, the hardened roller die is mounted in the upper bed of the transfer press, in such a way as to be capable of rotation round its axis, and a similar roller of softened steel is similarly placed in the under bed. The rollers are now made to bear on each other by the action of the upper screw, and while in hard contact, the lower one is caused to revolve, which, carrying round the upper by friction, receives from it the figured impression in relief. When cylinders for a three-coloured machine are wanted, three suchmillsare made fac-similes of each other; and the prominent parts of the figure which belong to the other two copper cylinders are filed off in each one respectively. Thus three differently figuredmillsare very readily formed, each adapted to engrave its particular figure upon a distinct copper cylinder.Some copper cylinders for peculiar styles are not graved by indentation, as just described, but etched by a diamond point, which is moved by mechanism in the most curious variety of configurations, while the cylinder slowly revolves in a horizontal line beneath it. The result is extremely beautiful, but it would require a very elaborate set of drawings to represent the machinery by which Mr. Locket produces it. The copper is covered by a resist varnish while being heated by the transmission of steam through its axis. After being etched, it is suspended horizontally by the ends, for about five minutes, in an oblong trough charged with dilute nitric acid.With regard to the two and three-coloured machines, we must observe, that as the calico in passing between the cylinders is stretched laterally from the central line of the web, the figures engraved upon the cylinders must be proportionally shortened, in their lateral dimensions especially, for the first and second cylinder.Cylinder printing, though a Scotch invention, has received its wonderful development in England, and does the greatest honour to this country. The economy of labour introduced by these machines is truly marvellous; one of them, under the guidance of a man to regulate the rollers, and the service of a boy, to supply the colour troughs, being capable of printing as many pieces as nearly 200 men and boys could do with blocks. The perfection of the engraving is most honourable to our artisans. The French with all their ingenuity and neat-handedness can produce nothing approaching in excellence to the engraved cylinders of Manchester,—a painful admission, universally made to me by every eminent manufacturer in Alsace, whom I visited in my late tour.Another modification of cylinder printing, is that with wooden rollers cut in relief: it is calledsurface printing, probably because the thickened colour is applied to a tense surface of woollen cloth, from which the roller takes it up by revolving in contact with the cloth. When the copper cylinders, and the wooden ones, are combined in one apparatus, it has got the appropriate name of theunionprinting machine.In mounting three or more cylinders in one frame, many more adjustments become necessary than those described above. The first and most important is that which ensures the correspondence between the parts of the figures in the successive printing rollers, for unless those of the second and subsequent engraved cylinders be accurately inserted into their respective places, a confused pattern would be produced upon the cloth as it advances round the pressure cylinderB,figs.233,234.Each cylinder must have a forward adjustment in the direction of rotation round its axis, so as to bring the patterns into correspondence with each other in the length of the piece; and also a lateral or traverse adjustment in the line of its axis, to effect the correspondence of the figures across the piece; and thus, by both together, each cylinder may be made to work symmetrically with its fellows.Cylinder printing machineFig. 234 enlarged(227 kB)Fig.234.is a cross section of a four-colour cylinder machine, by which the working parts are clearly illustrated.A A Ais a part of the two strong iron frames or cheeks, in which the various rollers are mounted. They are bound together by the rods and boltsa a a a.Bis the large iron pressure cylinder, which rests with its gudgeons in bearings or bushes, which can be shifted up and down in slots of the side cheeksA A. These bushes are suspended from powerful screwsb, which turn in brass nuts, made fast to the top of the frameA, as is plainly shown in the figure. These screws serve to counteract the strong pressure applied beneath that cylinder, by the engraved cylindersD E.C D E Fare the four printing cylinders, named in the order of their operation. They consist of strong tubes of copper or gun-metal, forcibly thrust by a screw press upon the iron mandrels, round which as shafts they revolve.The first and last cylinderCandFare mounted in brass bearings, which may be shifted in horizontal slots of the frameA. The pressure rollerB, against whose surface they bear with a very little obliquity downwards, may be nicely adjusted to that pressure by its elevating and depressing screws. By this meansCandFcan be adjusted toBwith geometrical precision, and made to press it in truly opposite directions.The bearings of the cylindersDandEare lodged also in slots of the frameA, which point obliquely upwards, towards the centre ofB. The pressure of these two print cylindersCandFis produced by two screwscandd, which work in brass nuts, made fast to the frame, and very visible in the figure. The frame-work in which these bearings and screws are placed, has a curvilinear form, in order to permit the cylinders to be readily removed and replaced; and also to introduce a certain degree of elasticity. Hence the pressure applied to the cylindersCandF, partakes of the nature of a spring; a circumstance essential to their working smoothly, on account of the occasional inequalities in the thickness of the felt web and the calico.The pressure upon the other two print cylindersDandEis produced by weights acting with levers against the bearings. The bearings ofDare, at each of their ends, acted upon by cylindrical rods, which slide in long tubular bosses of the frame, and press with their nutsgat their under end upon the small arms of two strong leversG, which lie on each side of the machine, and whose fulcrum is ath(in the lower corner at the left hand). The long arms of these leversG, are loaded with weightsH, whereby they are made to press up against the bearings of the rollerD, with any degree of force, by screwing up the nutg, and hanging on the requisite weights.The manner in which the cylinderEis pressed up againstB, is by a similar construction to that just described. With each of its bearings, there is connected by the linkk, a curved leverI, whose fulcrum or centre of motion is at the boltl. To the outer end of this lever, a screw,m, is attached, which presses downwards upon the linkn, connected with the small arm of the strong leverk, whose centre of motion is ato. By turning therefore the screwm, the weightL, laid upon the end of the long arm of the leverK(of which there is one upon each side of the machine), may be made to act or not at pleasure upon the bearings of the cylinderE.In tracing the operation of this exquisite printing machine, we shall begin with the first engraved cylinderC. Its bearings or bushes shift, as was already stated, in slots of the frameA. Each of them consists of a round piece of iron, to which the end of the screwcis joined, in the same way as atd, in the opposite side. In each of these iron bearings, a concave brass is inserted to support the collar of the shaft, and in a dovetailed slit of this brass, a sliding piece is fitted, upon which a set or adjusting screw in the iron bearing acts, and which, being forced against the copper cylinderC, serves to adjust the line of its axis, and to keep it steady between its bearings, and true in its rotatory motion. Upon the iron bearing a plate is screwed, provided with two flanges,which support the colour troughq, and the colour rollerM. This trough, as well as the others to be mentioned presently, is made of sheet copper in the sides and bottom, and fixed upon a board; but its ends are made of plates of cast copper or gun-metal to serve as bearings to the colour rollerM. The trough and its roller may be shifted both together into contact with the printing cylinderC, by means of the screwr. Nears, seen above the roller,C, andtbelow it, are sections of the two doctors, which keep the engraved cylinders in sound working condition; the former being the colour doctor, and the latter the lint doctor. Their ends lie in brasses, which may be adjusted by the screwsuandV, working in the respective brackets, which carry their brasses, and are made fast to the iron bearings of the cylinder.The pressure of the colour doctor is produced by two weightsw(see high up on theframe work), which act on a pair of small leversx, (one on each side of the machine,) and thus, by means of the chains, tend to lift the armsy, attached to the end axles of the doctor. The pressure of the lint doctor upon the cylinderC, is performed by the screwz, pressing upon an arm which projects downwards, and is attached to the axle of that doctor.The bearings of the second printing cylinderD, consist at each end of a mass of iron (removed in the drawing to show the mechanism below it), which shifts in the slanting slot of the frameA. In each of these masses there is another piece of iron, which slides in the transverse direction, and may be shifted by the adjusting screwa′fixed to it, and working in a nut cast upon the principal bearing above described. To the inner bearings, which carry the brasses in which the shaft lies, are screwed the two curved armsb′b′to which are attached the bearings, &c., for the colour trough, and the doctors. In these brasses there are also dovetailed pieces, which slide and are pressed by set screws furnished with square heads in the iron secondary bearings, which serve, as before said, to adjust the printing cylinder in the line of its axis, while other screws adjust the distance of the cloth upon which the second colour is printed, and the line of contact with the cylinderB.N, is the colour roller ofD, andd′the colour trough, which rests by its board upon the levere′; whose centres of motionf′, are made fast to the curved armsb′, fixed at thebearings of the cylinder, and whose ends are suspended by screwsg′; whereby the colour rollerN, may be pressed with greater or less force to the cylinderD.h′andi′are the two doctors of this cylinder; the former being the colour, the latter the lint doctor. They rest, as was said of the cylinderC, in brasses which are adjustable by means of screws, that work in the studs or brackets by which the brasses are supported. These brackets must of course be screwed to the secondary bearing-pieces, in order that they may keep their position, into whatever direction the bearings may be shifted.k′andl′are these set screws for the colour and lint doctors. The pressure of the former upon the cylinderD, is produced by weightsm′, acting upon leversn′, and pressing by rods or linkso′, upon arms attached to each end of the axis of the doctor. (See the left hand side of thefigurenear the bottom). The lint-doctori′, is pressed in a similar way at the other side upon the cylinderD, by the weights acting upon leversp′, and by rodsq′upon arms fixed at each end of the axis of the doctor.The bearings of the third printing cylinderE, are of exactly the same construction as that above described, and therefore require no particular detail. The lint doctors, is here pressed upon the engraved cylinder by screwst′, working in the ends of studs or arms fixed upon each end of the axis of the doctor, and pressing upon flanges cast upon the brackets in which the brasses of the doctor’s axis lie, which are made fast to the bearings of the cylinderE.The bearings of the fourth copper cylinderF, are also constructed in a similar way. Each consists of a first bearing, to which is joined the end of the screwd, by which it is made to slide in a slot of the frame. Another bearing, which contains the brass for the shaft of the cylinder, can be shifted up and down in a transverse direction by a screwz′, of the second bearing, working in a nut cast upon the first bearing. To this secondary bearing, plates are made fast by the screwsv′v′to the inside, to carry the studs or brackets of the doctorsx′andy′. In the brasses of the cylinder shaft, dovetailed pieces are made to slide, being pressed by set screwsw′, against the engraved cylinderF, similar to what has been described for adjusting the cylinders to one another. This cylinder has no separate colour roller, nor trough, properly speaking, but the colour doctory′is made concave to serve the purpose of a trough in supplying the engraved lines of the cylinder with colour. With this view the top plate of the doctor is curved to contain the coloured paste, and it is shut up at the ends by pieces of wood made to fit the curvature of the doctor. Its pressure against the engraved surface is produced by weightsa′′, acting at the ends of armsb′′, attached to the ends of the axis of the doctor. The pressure of the lint doctorx′is given by screwsc′′, working in arms attached to the ends of the axis of the doctor, and pressing upon the flangesd′′, cast upon the brackets which carry the brasses for the axis of the doctor. These brasses are themselves adjustable, like those of all the other cylinders, by set screws in the brackets, which work in the nuts formed in the brasses.e′′e′′, is the endless web of felt stuff which goes round the cylinderB, and constitutes the soft elastic surface upon which the printing cylindersC,D,E, andFexercise their pressure. This endless felt is passed over a set of rollers at a certain distance from the machine, to give opportunity for the drying up of any colouring paste which it may have imbibed from the calico in the course of the impressions. In its return to the machine in the direction of the arrow, it is led over a guide rollero, which is thereby made to revolve. Upon the two ends of this, and outside of the bearings which are fixed upon the tops of the frameA, are two eccentrics, one of which serves to give a vibratory traverse movement to the colour doctorss′,h′, andr′of the three cylinders,C,D, andEwhilst the other causes the colour doctory′of the cylinderF, to make lateral vibrations.
CALICO-PRINTING (Impression d’Indiennes, Fr.;Zeugdruckerei, Germ.) is the art of impressing cotton cloth with topical dyes of more or less permanence. Of late years, silk and woollen fabrics have been made the subjects of a similar style of dyeing. Linens were formerly stained with various coloured designs, but since the modern improvements in the manufacture of cotton cloth they are seldom printed, as they are both dearer, and produce less beautiful work, because flax possesses less affinity than cotton for colouring matters.
This art is of very ancient date in India, and takes its English name from Calicut, a district where it has been practised with great success from time immemorial. The Egyptians, also, appear from Pliny’s testimony to have practised at a remote era some of the most refined processes of topical dyeing. “Robes and white veils,” says he, “are painted in Egypt in a wonderful way. They are first imbued, not with dyes, but with dye-absorbing drugs, by which, though they seem to be unaltered, yet, when immersed for a little while in a cauldron of the boiling dye-liquor, they are found to become painted. Yet, as there is only one colour in the cauldron, it is marvellous to see many colours imparted to the robe, in consequence of the influence of the excipient drug. Nor can the dye be washed out. A cauldron, which would of itself merely confuse the colours of cloths previously dyed, is thus made to impart several pigments from a single dye-stuff,painting as it boils.” The last expressionpingitque dum coquit, is perfectly graphic and descriptive of calico-printing.
The cotton chintz counterpanes of great size, calledpallampoors, which have been manufactured in Madras from the earliest ages, have in like manner peculiar dye-absorbing drugs applied to them with the pencil, as also wax, to protect certain parts of the surface from the action of the dye, and are afterwards immersed in a staining liquor, which, when wax is applied, is usually the cold indigo-vat, but without the wax is a hot liquor similar to the Egyptian. M. Koechlin Roder, of Mulhouse, brought home lately fromIndia a rich collection of cloths in this state of preparation, which I saw in the cabinet of theSociété Industrielleof that interesting emporium of calico-printing. The native implements for applying the wax and colouring bases are placed alongside of the cloths, and form a curious picture of primeval art. There is among other samples an ancientpallampoor, five French yards long, and two and a half broad, said to be the labour of Hindoo princesses, which must have taken a lifetime to execute. The printing machinery of great Britain has begun to supersede, for these styles of work, the cheapest hand labour of India.
Calico-printing has been for several hundred years practised by the oriental methods in Asia Minor and the Levant, but it was unknown as an English art till 1696, when a small print-ground was formed upon the banks of the Thames, near Richmond, by a Frenchman; probably a refugee from his own country, in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Some time afterwards, a considerable printing work was established at Bromley Hall, in Essex, and several others sprung up successively in Surrey, to supply the London shops with chintzes, their import from India having been prohibited by act of parliament in 1700. The silk and woollen weavers, indeed, had all along manifested the keenest hostility to the use of printed calicoes, whether brought from the East or made at home. In the year 1680 they mobbed the India House in revenge for some large importations then made of the chintzes of Malabar. They next induced the government, by incessant clamours, to exclude altogether the beautiful robes of Calicut from the British market. But the printed goods, imported by the English and Dutch East India companies, found their way into this country, in spite of the excessive penalties annexed to smuggling, and raised a new alarm among the manufacturing population of Spitalfields. The sapient legislators of that day, intimidated, as would appear, by the East London mobs, enacted in 1720 an absurd sumptuary law, prohibiting thewearing of all printed calicoes whatsoever, either of foreign or domestic origin. This disgraceful enactment, worthy of the meridian of Cairo or Algiers, proved not only a death blow to rising industry in this ingenious department of the arts, but prevented the British ladies from attiring themselves in the becoming drapery of Hindostan. After an oppressive operation of ten years, this act was repealed by a partially enlightened set of senators, who were then pleased to permit what they called British calicoes, if made of linen warp, with merely weft of thehatedcotton, to be printed and worn, upon paying a duty of no less than sixpence the square yard. Under this burden, English calico-printing could not be expected to make a rapid progress. Accordingly, even so lately as the year 1750, no more than 50,000 pieces of mixed stuff were printed in Great Britain, and that chiefly in the neighbourhood of London; whereas a single manufacturer, Mr. Coates of Manchester, now-a-days will turn off nearly twenty times that quantity, and there are very many others who manufacture several hundred thousand pieces per annum. It was not till about 1766 that this art migrated into Lancashire, where it has since taken such extraordinary development; but it was only after 1774 that it began to be founded upon right principles, in consequence of the repeal of that part of the act of 1730 which required the warp to be made of linen yarn. Henceforth the printer, though still saddled with a heavy duty of 3d.the square yard, was allowed to apply his colours to a homogeneous web, instead of the mixed fabric of linen and cotton substances, which differ in their affinities for dyes.
France pursued for some time a similar false policy with regard to calico-printing, but she emerged sooner from the mists of manufacturing monopoly than England. Her avowed motive was to cherish the manufacture of flax, a native product, instead of that of cotton, a raw material, for which prejudice urged that money had to be exported. Her intelligent statesmen of that day, fully seventy years ago, replied, that the money expended in the purchase of cotton was the produce of French industry, beneficially employed, and they therefore took immediate measures to put the cotton fabrics upon a footing of equality. Meanwhile the popular prejudices became irritated to such a degree, by the project of permitting the free manufacture and sale of printed cottons, that every French town possessed of a chamber of commerce made the strongest remonstrances against it. The Rouen deputies declared to the government, “that the intended measure would throw its inhabitants into despair, and make a desert of the surrounding country;” those of Lyons said, “the news had spread terror through all its work-shops:” Tours “foresaw a commotion likely to convulse the body of the state:” Amiens said, “that the new law would be the grave of the manufacturing industry of France;” and Paris declared that “her merchants came forward to bathe the throne with their tears upon that inauspicious occasion.”
The government persisted in carrying its truly enlightened principles into effect, and with so manifest advantage to the nation, as to warrant the inspector-general of manufactures to make, soon afterwards, the following appeal to those prejudiced bodies:—“Will any of you now deny that the fabrication of printed cottons has occasioned a vast extension of the industry of France, by giving profitable employment to a great manyhands in spinning, weaving, bleaching, and printing the colours? Look only at the dyeing department, and say whether it has not done more good to France in a few years than many of your other manufactures have in a century?”
The despair of Rouen has been replaced by the most signal prosperity in the cotton trade, and especially in printed calicoes, for the manufacture of which it possesses 70 different establishments, producing upwards of a million of pieces of greater average size and price than the English. In the district of the Lower Seine, round that town, there are 500 cotton factories of different kinds, which give employment to 118 thousand operatives of all orders, and thus procure a comfortable livelihood to probably not less than half a million of people.
The repeal, in 1831, of the consolidated duty of 31⁄2d.per square yard upon printed calicoes in Great Britain is one of the most judicious acts of modern legislation. By the improvements in calico-printing, due to the modern discoveries and inventions in chemistry and mechanics, the trade had become so vast as to yield in 1830 a revenue of 2,280,000l.levied upon 8,596,000 of pieces, of which, however, about three fourths were exported, with a drawback of 1,579,000l.2,281,512 pieces were consumed in that year at home. When the expenses of collection were deducted, only 350,000l.found their way into the exchequer, for which pitiful sum thousands of frauds and obstructions were committed against the honest manufacturer. This reduction of duty enables the consumer to get this extensive article of clothing from 50 to 80 per cent. cheaper than before, and thus places a becoming dress within the reach of thousands of handsome females in the humbler ranks of life. Printed goods, which in 1795 were sold for two shillings and three-pence the yard, may be bought at present for eight-pence. In fact a woman may now purchase the materials of a pretty gown for two shillings. The repeal of the tax has been no less beneficial to the fair dealers, by putting an end to the contraband trade, formerly pursued to an extent equally injurious to them and the revenue. It has, moreover, emancipated a manufacture, eminently dependent upon taste, science, and dexterity, from the venal curiosity of petty excisemen, by whom private improvements, of great value to the inventor, were in perpetual jeopardy of being pirated and sold to any sordid rival. The manufacturer has now become a free agent, a master of his time, his workmen, and his apparatus; and can print at whatever hour he may receive an order; whereas he was formerly obliged to wait the convenience of the excise officer, whose province it was to measure and stamp the cloth before it could be packed,—an operation fraught with no little annoyance and delay. Under the patronage of parliament, it was easy for needy adventurers to buy printed calicoes, because they could raise such a sum by drawbacks upon the export of one lot as would go far to pay for another, and thus carry on a fraudulent system of credit, which sooner or later merged in a disastrous bankruptcy. Meanwhile the goods thus obtained were pushed off to some foreign markets, for which they were, possibly, not suited, or where they produced, by their forced sales a depreciation of all similar merchandize, ruinous to them and who meant to pay for his wares.
The principles of calico-printing have been very profoundly studied by many of the French manufacturers, who generally keep a chemist, who has been educated in the Parisian schools of science, constantly at work, making experiments upon colours in a well-mounted laboratory. In that belonging to M. Daniel Kœchlin, of Mulhausen, there are upwards of 3000 labelled phials, filled with chemical reagents, and specimens subservient to dyeing. The great disadvantage under which the French printers labour is the higher price they pay for cotton fabrics, above that paid by the English printers. It is this circumstance alone which prevents them from becoming very formidable rivals to us in the markets of the world. M. Barbet, deputy and mayor of Rouen, in his replies to the ministerial commission of inquiry, rates the disadvantage proceeding from that cause at 2 francs per piece, or about 5 per cent. in value. In the annual report of theSociété Industrielleof Mulhausen, made in December, 1833, the number of pieces printed that year in Alsace is rated at 720,000, to which if we add 1,000,000 for the produce of the department of the Lower Seine, and 280,000 for that of St. Quentin, Lille, and the rest of France, we shall have for the total amount of this manufacture 2,000,000 of pieces, equivalent to nearly 2,400,000 pieces English; for the French piece usually measures 331⁄2aunes, = 41 yards nearly; and it is also considerably broader than the English pieces upon an average. It is therefore probable that the home consumption of France in printed goods is equal in quantity, and superior in value, to that of England. With regard to the comparative skill of the workmen in the two countries, M. Nicholas Kœchlin, deputy of the Upper Rhine, says, that one of his foremen, who worked for a year in a print-field in Lancashire, found little or no difference between them in that respect. The English wages are considerably higher than the French. The machines for multiplying production, which for some time gave us a decided advantage, are now getting into very general use among our neighbours. In my recent visit to Mulhausen, Rouen, and their environs, I had an opportunity of seeing many printing establishments mounted with all the resources of the most refined mechanisms.
The calico-printing of this country still labours under the burden of considerable taxes upon madder and gallipoli oil, which have counteracted the prosperity of our Turkey red styles of work, and caused them to nourish at Elberfeld, and some other places on the continent, whither a good deal of the English yarns are sent to be dyed, then brought back, and manufactured into ginghams, checks, &c., or forwarded directly thence to our Russian customers. This fact places our fiscal laws in the same odious light as the facility of pirating printer’s patterns with impunity does our chancery laws.
Before cloth can receive good figured impressions its surface must be freed from fibrous down bySingeing, and be rendered smooth by theCalender. See these articles. They are next bleached, with the exception of those destined for Turkey red. SeeBleachingandMadder. After they are bleached, dried, singed, and calendered, they are lapped round in great lengths of several pieces, stitched endwise together, by means of an apparatus called, in Manchester, acandroy, which bears on its front edge a rounded iron bar, transversely grooved to the right and left from the centre, so as to spread out the web as it is drawn over it by the rotation of the lapping roller. See a figure of this bar subservient to thecylinder printing-machine.
Four different methods are in use for imprinting figures upon calicoes: the first is by small wooden blocks, on whose face the design is cut, which are worked by hand; the second is by larger wood-cut blocks, placed in either two or three planes, standing at right angles to each other, called a Perrotine, from the name of its inventor; the third is by flat copper plates, a method now almost obsolete; and the fourth is by a system of copper cylinders, mounted in a frame of great elegance, but no little complexity, by which two, three, four, or even five colours may be printed on in rapid succession by the mere rotation of the machine driven by the agency of steam or water. The productive powers of this printing automaton are very great, amounting for some styles to a piece in the minute, or a mile of cloth in the hour. The fifth colour is commonly communicated by means of what is called a surface cylinder, covered with wooden figures in bas-relief, which, by rotation, are applied to a plane of cloth imbued with the thickened mordants.
The hand blocks are made of sycamore or pear-tree wood, or of deal faced with these woods, and are from two to three inches thick, nine or ten inches long, and five broad, with a strong box handle on the back for seizing them by. The face of the block is either carved in relief into the desired design, like an ordinary wood-cut, or the figure is formed by the insertion edgewise into the wood of narrow slips of flattened copper wire. These tiny fillets, being filed level on the one edge, are cut or bent into the proper shape, and forced into the wood by the taps of a hammer at the traced lines of the configuration. Their upper surfaces are now filed flat, and polished into one horizontal plane, for the sake of equality of impression. As the slips are of equal thickness in their whole depth, from having been made by running the wire through between the steel cylinders of a flatting mill, the lines of the figure, however much they get worn by use, are always equally broad as at first; an advantage which does not belong to wood-cutting. The interstices between the ridges thus formed are filled up with felt-stuff. Sometimes a delicate part of the design is made by the wood-cutter, and the rest by the insertion of copper slips.
The colouring matter, properly thickened, is spread with a flat brush, by a child, upon fine woollen cloth, stretched in a frame over the wax cloth head of a wooden drum or sieve, which floats inverted in a tubful of old paste, to give it elastic buoyancy. The inverted sieve drum should fit the paste tub pretty closely. The printer presses the face of the block on the drum head, so as to take up the requisite quantity of colour, applies it to the surface of the calico, extended upon a flat table covered with a blanket, and then strikes the back of the block with a wooden mallet, in order to transfer the impression fully to the cloth. This is a delicate operation, requiring equal dexterity and diligence. To print a piece of cloth 28 yards long, and 30 inches broad, no less than 672 applications of a block, 9 inches long and 5 inches broad, are requisite for each colour; so that if there are 3 colours, or 3 hands, as the French term it, no less than 2016 applications will be necessary. The blocks have pin-points fixed into their corners, by means of which they are adjusted to their positions upon the cloth, so as to join the different parts of the design with precision. Each printer has a colour-tub placed within reach of his right hand; and for every different colour he must have a separate sieve. Many manufacturers cause their blocks to be made of three layers of wood, two of them being deal with the grain crossed to prevent warping, and the third sycamore for engraving.
Work bench
The printing shop is an oblong apartment, lighted with numerous windows at each side, and having a solid table opposite to each window. The tableB,fig.231.is formed of a strong plank of well-seasoned hard wood, mahogany, or marble, with a surface truly plane. Its length is about 6 feet, its breadth 2 feet, and its thickness 3, 4, or 5 inches. It stands on strong feet, with its top about 36 inches above the floor. At one of its ends there are two bracketsCfor supporting the axles of the rollerE, which carries thewhite calico to be printed. The hanging rollersEare laid across joists fixed near the roof of the apartment above the printing shop, the ceiling and floor between them being open bar work, at least in the middle of the room. Their use is to facilitate the exposure, and, consequently, the drying of the printed pieces, and to prevent one figure being daubed by another. Should they come to be all filled, the remainder of the goods must be folded lightly upon the stoolD.
The printer stretches a length of the piece upon his tableA B, taking care to place the selvage towards himself, and one inch from the edge. He presents the block towards the end, to determine the width of its impression, and marks this lineA B, by means of his square and tracing point. The spreader now besmears the cloth with the colour, at the commencement, upon both sides of the sieve head; because, if not uniformly applied, the block will take it up unequally. The printer seizes the block in his right hand, and daubs it twice in different directions upon the sieve cloth, then he transfers it to the calico in the lineA B, as indicated by the four pointsa b c d, corresponding to the four pins in the corners of the block. Having done so, he takes another daub of the colour, and makes the pointsa bfall onc d, so as to have at the second stampa′b′, coveringa bandc′d′; and so on, through the rest, as denoted by the accented letters. When one table length is finished, he draws the cloth along, so as to bring a new length in its place.
The grounding in, or re-entering (rentrage), of the other colours is the next process. The blocks used for this purpose are furnished with pin-points, so adjusted that, when they are made to coincide with the pin-points of the former block, the design will be correct; that is to say, the new colour will be applied in its due place upon the flower or other figure. The points should not be allowed to touch the white cloth, but should be made to fall upon the stem of a leaf, or some other dark spot. Theserentragesare of four sorts:—1. One for the mordants, as above; 2. one for topical colours; 3. one for the application of reds; and, 4., one for the application of resist pastes or reserves. These styles have superseded the old practice of pencilling.
The Perrotine is a machine for executing block-printing by mechanical power; and it performs as much work, it is said, as 20 expert hands. I have seen its operation, in many factories in France and Belgium, in a very satisfactory manner; but I have reason to believe that there are none of them as yet in this country. Three wooden blocks, from 21⁄2to 3 feet long, according to the breadth of the cloth, and from 2 to 5 inches broad, faced with pear-tree wood, engraved in relief, are mounted in a powerful cast-iron frame work, with their planes at right angles to each other, so that each of them may, in succession, be brought to bear upon the face, top, and back of a square prism of iron covered with cloth, and fitted to revolve upon an axis between the said blocks. The calico passes between the prism and the engraved blocks, and receives successive impressions from them as it is successively drawn through by a winding cylinder. The blocks are pressed against the calico through the agency of springs, which imitate the elastic pressure of the workman’s hand. Each block receives a coat of coloured paste from a woollen surface, smeared after every contact with a mechanical brush. One man, with one or two children for superintending the colour-giving surfaces, can turn off about 30 pieces English per day, in three colours, which is the work of fully 20 men and 20 children in block printing by hand. It executes some styles of work to which the cylinder machine, without the surface roller, is inadequate.
The copper-plate printing of calico is almost exactly the same as that used for printing engravings on paper from flat plates, and being nearly superseded by the next machine, need not be described.
Cylinder printing machine
The cylinder printing machine consists, as its name imports, of an engraved copper cylinder, so mounted as to revolve against another cylinder lapped in woollen cloth, and imbued with a coloured paste, from which it derives the means of communicating coloured impressions to pieces of calico passed over it.Fig.233.will give the reader a general idea of this elegant and expeditious plan of printing. The pattern is engraved upon the surface of a hollow cylinder of copper, or sometimes gun-metal, and the cylinder is forced by pressure upon a strong iron mandrel, which serves as its turning shaft. To facilitate the transfer of the impression from the engraving to the cotton cloth, the latter is lapped round another large cylinder, rendered elastic by rolls of woollen cloth, and the engraved cylinder presses the calico against this elastic cushion, and thereby prints it as it revolves. LetAbe the engraved cylinder mounted upon its mandrel, which receives rotatory motion by wheels on its end, connected with the steam or water power of the factory.Bis a large iron drum or roller, turning in bearings of the end frames of the machine. Against that drum the engraved cylinderAis pressed by weights or screws; the weights acting steadily, by levers, upon its brass bearings. Round the drumBthe endless web of felt or blanket stuffa a, travels in the direction of the arrow, being carried round along with the drumB, which again is turned by the friction of contact with the cylinderA.crepresents a clothed wooden roller, partly plunged into the thickened colour of the troughD D. That roller is also made to bear, with a moderate force, againstA, and thus receives, by friction, in some cases, a movement of rotation. But it is preferable to drive the rollerCfrom the cylinderA, by means of a system of toothed wheels attached to their ends, so that the surface speed of the wooden or paste roller shall be somewhat greater than that of the printing cylinder, whereby the colour will be rubbed, as it were, into the engraved parts of the latter.
As the cylinderAis pressed upwards againstB, it is obvious that the bearers of the trough and its roller must be attached to the bearings of the cylinderA, in order to preserve its contact with the colour-rollerC.bis a sharp-edged ruler of gun-metal or steel, called thecolour doctor, screwed between two gun-metal stiffening bars; the edge of which wiper is slightly pressed as a tangent upon the engraved rollerA. This ruler vibrates with a slow motion from side to side, or right to left, so as to exercise a delicate shaving action upon the engraved surface, as this revolves in the direction of the arrow.cis another similar sharp-edged ruler, called thelint doctor, whose office it is to remove any fibres which may have come off the calico in the act of printing, and which, if left on the engraved cylinder, would be apt to occupy some of the lines, or at least to prevent the colour from filling them all. Thislint doctoris pressed very slightly upon the cylinderA, and has no traverse motion.
What was stated with regard to the bearers of the colour troughD, namely, that they are connected, and moved up and down together with the bearings of the cylinderA, may also be said of the bearers of the two doctors.
The working of this beautiful mechanism may now be easily comprehended. The web of calico, indicated in the figure by the letterd, is introduced or carried in along with the blanket stuffa a, in the direction of the arrow, and is moved onward by the pressure of the revolving cylinderA, so as to receive the impression of the pattern engraved on that cylinder.
Before proceeding to describe the more complex calico-machine which prints upon cloth, 3, 4, or 5 colours at one operation, by the rotation of so many cylinders, I shall explain the modern methods of engraving the cylinder, which I am enabled to do by the courtesy of Mr. Locket, of Manchester, an artist of great ingenuity in this department, who politely allowed me to inspect the admirable apparatus and arrangements of his factory.
To engrave a copper cylinder 3 or 4 inches in diameter, and from 30 to 36 inches long with the multitude of minute figures which exist in many patterns, would be a very laborious and expensive operation. The happy invention made by Mr. Jacob Perkins, in America, for transferring engravings from one surface to another by means of steel roller dies, was with great judgment applied by Mr. Locket to calico-printing, so long ago as the year 1808, before the first inventor came to Europe with the plan. The pattern is first drawn upon a scale of about 3 inches square, so that this size of figure being repeated a definite number of times, will cover the cylinder. This pattern is next engraved in intaglio upon a roller of softened steel, about 1 inch in diameter, and 3 inches long, so that it will exactly occupy its surface. The engraver aids his eye with alens, when employed at this delicate work. This roller is hardened by heating it to a cherry-red in an iron case containing pounded bone-ash, and then plunging it into cold water; its surface being protected from oxidizement by a chalky paste. This hardened roller is put into a press of a peculiar construction, where, by a rotatory pressure, it transfers its design to a similar roller in the soft state; and as the former was in intaglio, the latter must be in relievo. This second roller being hardened, and placed in an appropriate volutory press, is employed to engrave by indentation upon the full-sized copper cylinder, the whole of its intended pattern. The first roller engraved by hand is called thedie; the second, obtained from it by a process like that of a milling tool, is called themill. By this indentation and multiplication system, an engraved cylinder may be had for seven pounds, which engraved by hand would cost fifty or upwards. The restoration of a worn-out cylinder becomes extremely easy in this way; the mill being preserved, need merely be properly rolled over the copper surface again.
At other times, the hard rollerdieis placed in the upper bed of a screw press, not unlike that for coining, while the horizontal bed below is made to move upon strong rollers mounted in a rectangular iron frame. In the middle of that bed a smooth cake or flat disc of very soft iron, about 1 inch thick, and 3 or 4 inches in diameter, is made fast by four horizontal adjusting screws, that work in studs of the bed frame. Thediebeing now brought down by a powerful screw, worked by toothed wheel-work, and made to press with force upon the iron cake, the bed is moved backwards and forwards, causing the roller to revolve on its axles by friction, and to impart its design to the cake. This iron disc is now case-hardened by being ignited amidst horn shavings in a box, and then suddenly quenched in water, when it becomes itself a die in relievo. This disc die is fixed in the upper part of a screw press with its engraved face downwards, yet so as to be movable horizontally by traverse screws. Beneath this inverted bed, sustained at its upper surface by friction-rollers, a copper cylinder 30 inches long, or thereby, is mounted horizontally upon a strong iron mandrel, furnished with toothed wheels at one of its ends, to communicate to it a movement upon its axis through any aliquot arcs of the circle. The disc die being now brought down to bear upon the copper cylinder, this is turned round through an arc corresponding in length to the length of the die; and thus, by the steady downward pressure of the screw, combined with the revolution of the cylinder, the transfer of the engraving is made in intaglio. This is I believe the most convenient process for engraving, by transfer, the copper of a one-cylinder machine. But when 2, 3, or 4 cylinders are to be engraved with the same pattern for a two, three, or four-coloured machine, the die and the mill roller plan of transfer is adopted. In this case, the hardened roller die is mounted in the upper bed of the transfer press, in such a way as to be capable of rotation round its axis, and a similar roller of softened steel is similarly placed in the under bed. The rollers are now made to bear on each other by the action of the upper screw, and while in hard contact, the lower one is caused to revolve, which, carrying round the upper by friction, receives from it the figured impression in relief. When cylinders for a three-coloured machine are wanted, three suchmillsare made fac-similes of each other; and the prominent parts of the figure which belong to the other two copper cylinders are filed off in each one respectively. Thus three differently figuredmillsare very readily formed, each adapted to engrave its particular figure upon a distinct copper cylinder.
Some copper cylinders for peculiar styles are not graved by indentation, as just described, but etched by a diamond point, which is moved by mechanism in the most curious variety of configurations, while the cylinder slowly revolves in a horizontal line beneath it. The result is extremely beautiful, but it would require a very elaborate set of drawings to represent the machinery by which Mr. Locket produces it. The copper is covered by a resist varnish while being heated by the transmission of steam through its axis. After being etched, it is suspended horizontally by the ends, for about five minutes, in an oblong trough charged with dilute nitric acid.
With regard to the two and three-coloured machines, we must observe, that as the calico in passing between the cylinders is stretched laterally from the central line of the web, the figures engraved upon the cylinders must be proportionally shortened, in their lateral dimensions especially, for the first and second cylinder.
Cylinder printing, though a Scotch invention, has received its wonderful development in England, and does the greatest honour to this country. The economy of labour introduced by these machines is truly marvellous; one of them, under the guidance of a man to regulate the rollers, and the service of a boy, to supply the colour troughs, being capable of printing as many pieces as nearly 200 men and boys could do with blocks. The perfection of the engraving is most honourable to our artisans. The French with all their ingenuity and neat-handedness can produce nothing approaching in excellence to the engraved cylinders of Manchester,—a painful admission, universally made to me by every eminent manufacturer in Alsace, whom I visited in my late tour.
Another modification of cylinder printing, is that with wooden rollers cut in relief: it is calledsurface printing, probably because the thickened colour is applied to a tense surface of woollen cloth, from which the roller takes it up by revolving in contact with the cloth. When the copper cylinders, and the wooden ones, are combined in one apparatus, it has got the appropriate name of theunionprinting machine.
In mounting three or more cylinders in one frame, many more adjustments become necessary than those described above. The first and most important is that which ensures the correspondence between the parts of the figures in the successive printing rollers, for unless those of the second and subsequent engraved cylinders be accurately inserted into their respective places, a confused pattern would be produced upon the cloth as it advances round the pressure cylinderB,figs.233,234.
Each cylinder must have a forward adjustment in the direction of rotation round its axis, so as to bring the patterns into correspondence with each other in the length of the piece; and also a lateral or traverse adjustment in the line of its axis, to effect the correspondence of the figures across the piece; and thus, by both together, each cylinder may be made to work symmetrically with its fellows.
Cylinder printing machineFig. 234 enlarged(227 kB)
Fig. 234 enlarged(227 kB)
Fig.234.is a cross section of a four-colour cylinder machine, by which the working parts are clearly illustrated.
A A Ais a part of the two strong iron frames or cheeks, in which the various rollers are mounted. They are bound together by the rods and boltsa a a a.
Bis the large iron pressure cylinder, which rests with its gudgeons in bearings or bushes, which can be shifted up and down in slots of the side cheeksA A. These bushes are suspended from powerful screwsb, which turn in brass nuts, made fast to the top of the frameA, as is plainly shown in the figure. These screws serve to counteract the strong pressure applied beneath that cylinder, by the engraved cylindersD E.
C D E Fare the four printing cylinders, named in the order of their operation. They consist of strong tubes of copper or gun-metal, forcibly thrust by a screw press upon the iron mandrels, round which as shafts they revolve.
The first and last cylinderCandFare mounted in brass bearings, which may be shifted in horizontal slots of the frameA. The pressure rollerB, against whose surface they bear with a very little obliquity downwards, may be nicely adjusted to that pressure by its elevating and depressing screws. By this meansCandFcan be adjusted toBwith geometrical precision, and made to press it in truly opposite directions.
The bearings of the cylindersDandEare lodged also in slots of the frameA, which point obliquely upwards, towards the centre ofB. The pressure of these two print cylindersCandFis produced by two screwscandd, which work in brass nuts, made fast to the frame, and very visible in the figure. The frame-work in which these bearings and screws are placed, has a curvilinear form, in order to permit the cylinders to be readily removed and replaced; and also to introduce a certain degree of elasticity. Hence the pressure applied to the cylindersCandF, partakes of the nature of a spring; a circumstance essential to their working smoothly, on account of the occasional inequalities in the thickness of the felt web and the calico.
The pressure upon the other two print cylindersDandEis produced by weights acting with levers against the bearings. The bearings ofDare, at each of their ends, acted upon by cylindrical rods, which slide in long tubular bosses of the frame, and press with their nutsgat their under end upon the small arms of two strong leversG, which lie on each side of the machine, and whose fulcrum is ath(in the lower corner at the left hand). The long arms of these leversG, are loaded with weightsH, whereby they are made to press up against the bearings of the rollerD, with any degree of force, by screwing up the nutg, and hanging on the requisite weights.
The manner in which the cylinderEis pressed up againstB, is by a similar construction to that just described. With each of its bearings, there is connected by the linkk, a curved leverI, whose fulcrum or centre of motion is at the boltl. To the outer end of this lever, a screw,m, is attached, which presses downwards upon the linkn, connected with the small arm of the strong leverk, whose centre of motion is ato. By turning therefore the screwm, the weightL, laid upon the end of the long arm of the leverK(of which there is one upon each side of the machine), may be made to act or not at pleasure upon the bearings of the cylinderE.
In tracing the operation of this exquisite printing machine, we shall begin with the first engraved cylinderC. Its bearings or bushes shift, as was already stated, in slots of the frameA. Each of them consists of a round piece of iron, to which the end of the screwcis joined, in the same way as atd, in the opposite side. In each of these iron bearings, a concave brass is inserted to support the collar of the shaft, and in a dovetailed slit of this brass, a sliding piece is fitted, upon which a set or adjusting screw in the iron bearing acts, and which, being forced against the copper cylinderC, serves to adjust the line of its axis, and to keep it steady between its bearings, and true in its rotatory motion. Upon the iron bearing a plate is screwed, provided with two flanges,which support the colour troughq, and the colour rollerM. This trough, as well as the others to be mentioned presently, is made of sheet copper in the sides and bottom, and fixed upon a board; but its ends are made of plates of cast copper or gun-metal to serve as bearings to the colour rollerM. The trough and its roller may be shifted both together into contact with the printing cylinderC, by means of the screwr. Nears, seen above the roller,C, andtbelow it, are sections of the two doctors, which keep the engraved cylinders in sound working condition; the former being the colour doctor, and the latter the lint doctor. Their ends lie in brasses, which may be adjusted by the screwsuandV, working in the respective brackets, which carry their brasses, and are made fast to the iron bearings of the cylinder.
The pressure of the colour doctor is produced by two weightsw(see high up on theframe work), which act on a pair of small leversx, (one on each side of the machine,) and thus, by means of the chains, tend to lift the armsy, attached to the end axles of the doctor. The pressure of the lint doctor upon the cylinderC, is performed by the screwz, pressing upon an arm which projects downwards, and is attached to the axle of that doctor.
The bearings of the second printing cylinderD, consist at each end of a mass of iron (removed in the drawing to show the mechanism below it), which shifts in the slanting slot of the frameA. In each of these masses there is another piece of iron, which slides in the transverse direction, and may be shifted by the adjusting screwa′fixed to it, and working in a nut cast upon the principal bearing above described. To the inner bearings, which carry the brasses in which the shaft lies, are screwed the two curved armsb′b′to which are attached the bearings, &c., for the colour trough, and the doctors. In these brasses there are also dovetailed pieces, which slide and are pressed by set screws furnished with square heads in the iron secondary bearings, which serve, as before said, to adjust the printing cylinder in the line of its axis, while other screws adjust the distance of the cloth upon which the second colour is printed, and the line of contact with the cylinderB.
N, is the colour roller ofD, andd′the colour trough, which rests by its board upon the levere′; whose centres of motionf′, are made fast to the curved armsb′, fixed at thebearings of the cylinder, and whose ends are suspended by screwsg′; whereby the colour rollerN, may be pressed with greater or less force to the cylinderD.h′andi′are the two doctors of this cylinder; the former being the colour, the latter the lint doctor. They rest, as was said of the cylinderC, in brasses which are adjustable by means of screws, that work in the studs or brackets by which the brasses are supported. These brackets must of course be screwed to the secondary bearing-pieces, in order that they may keep their position, into whatever direction the bearings may be shifted.k′andl′are these set screws for the colour and lint doctors. The pressure of the former upon the cylinderD, is produced by weightsm′, acting upon leversn′, and pressing by rods or linkso′, upon arms attached to each end of the axis of the doctor. (See the left hand side of thefigurenear the bottom). The lint-doctori′, is pressed in a similar way at the other side upon the cylinderD, by the weights acting upon leversp′, and by rodsq′upon arms fixed at each end of the axis of the doctor.
The bearings of the third printing cylinderE, are of exactly the same construction as that above described, and therefore require no particular detail. The lint doctors, is here pressed upon the engraved cylinder by screwst′, working in the ends of studs or arms fixed upon each end of the axis of the doctor, and pressing upon flanges cast upon the brackets in which the brasses of the doctor’s axis lie, which are made fast to the bearings of the cylinderE.
The bearings of the fourth copper cylinderF, are also constructed in a similar way. Each consists of a first bearing, to which is joined the end of the screwd, by which it is made to slide in a slot of the frame. Another bearing, which contains the brass for the shaft of the cylinder, can be shifted up and down in a transverse direction by a screwz′, of the second bearing, working in a nut cast upon the first bearing. To this secondary bearing, plates are made fast by the screwsv′v′to the inside, to carry the studs or brackets of the doctorsx′andy′. In the brasses of the cylinder shaft, dovetailed pieces are made to slide, being pressed by set screwsw′, against the engraved cylinderF, similar to what has been described for adjusting the cylinders to one another. This cylinder has no separate colour roller, nor trough, properly speaking, but the colour doctory′is made concave to serve the purpose of a trough in supplying the engraved lines of the cylinder with colour. With this view the top plate of the doctor is curved to contain the coloured paste, and it is shut up at the ends by pieces of wood made to fit the curvature of the doctor. Its pressure against the engraved surface is produced by weightsa′′, acting at the ends of armsb′′, attached to the ends of the axis of the doctor. The pressure of the lint doctorx′is given by screwsc′′, working in arms attached to the ends of the axis of the doctor, and pressing upon the flangesd′′, cast upon the brackets which carry the brasses for the axis of the doctor. These brasses are themselves adjustable, like those of all the other cylinders, by set screws in the brackets, which work in the nuts formed in the brasses.
e′′e′′, is the endless web of felt stuff which goes round the cylinderB, and constitutes the soft elastic surface upon which the printing cylindersC,D,E, andFexercise their pressure. This endless felt is passed over a set of rollers at a certain distance from the machine, to give opportunity for the drying up of any colouring paste which it may have imbibed from the calico in the course of the impressions. In its return to the machine in the direction of the arrow, it is led over a guide rollero, which is thereby made to revolve. Upon the two ends of this, and outside of the bearings which are fixed upon the tops of the frameA, are two eccentrics, one of which serves to give a vibratory traverse movement to the colour doctorss′,h′, andr′of the three cylinders,C,D, andEwhilst the other causes the colour doctory′of the cylinderF, to make lateral vibrations.