Cal′ico Printing

The art of producing figured patterns upon calico by means of dyes and mordants topically applied by wooden blocks, copper plates, or engraved cylinders. The goods are either directly printed in colour, or receive their patterns by being run through a colouring matter or mordant, when the dye is only produced upon that portion of the ground previously prepared for it. Of late this system of dyeing has been extended to silk and woollens. The mordants are thickened with some glutinous substance, as flour, starch, or gum, to render them adhesive and to prevent their spreading. The following are the principal styles of calico-printing, each requiring a different method of manipulation:— In the madder, fast colour, or chintz style, the mordants are applied to the white cloth, and the colours are brought out in the dye bath. This is the method commonly followed for “permanent prints.” In the padding or plaquage style, the whole cloth is pa ed through a bath of some particular mordant, and different mordants are afterwards printed on it before submitting it to the dye bath. By this means the colour of the ground and pattern is varied. Like the last, it is much used for gown pieces, . In the reserve or resist-paste style, white or coloured figures are general dye afterwards applied to form the ground of the pattern. In this style the dye bath is indigo, or some other substantive colour. The discharge, or rongeant style, is the reverse of the preceding; it with acidulous or discharge mordants after the cloth has been pa ed through the colouring bath. Steam-colour printing consists in printing the calico with a mixture of dye extracts and mordants, and afterwards exposing it to the action of steam. Spirit-colour printing is a method by which brilliant colours are produced by a mixture of dye extracts and solution of tin, called by the dyers “spirits of tin.” Pigment printing consists in applying such colours as ultramarine, magenta, or aniline purple, to the cloth, and fixing them by such agents as casein, albumen, or solution of india rubber. This style of printing has been developed to a great extent since the introduction of the splendid mauves and purples obtained from aniline. For further information on this subject the reader is referred to Ure’s ‘Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines,’ Calvert’s ‘Dyeing and Calico Printing,’ edited by Sten house and Groves; Wagner’s ‘Clinical Technology,’ and Crooke’s ‘Practical Handbook of Dyeing and Printing,’ where he will find the several proce es of calico printing fully treated on, and most ably and accurately described. To enter largely into the subject in this work might amuse the reader, but would be of no practical value; as calico printing is an art only practised on the large scale, and by men who obtain their whole knowledge of it in the laboratories and printing rooms of the factories.