CALENDER

( Calandre , Fr.; Kalander , Germ.) a word derived from the Greek kalindros (cylinder), is the name of a machine, consisting of two or more cylinders, revolving so nearly in contact with each other that cloth pa ed through between them is smoothed, and even glazed, by their powerful pre ure. It is employed either to finish goods for the market, or to prepare cotton and linen webs for the calico-printer, by rendering their surfaces level, compact, and uniform. This condensation and polish, or sat in age , as the French call it, differ in degree according to the object in view, and may be arranged into three distinct series. 1. For goods which are to receive the first impre ion by the block, a very strong pre ure is required; for, upon the uniformity of the polish, the neatne and regularity of the printing, and the correspondence of its members, depend. In many establishments the calico is pa ed twice through the calender before being sent to the tables. 2. The pieces already dyed up at the madder bath, or otherwise, and which remain to be filled in with other colours, or grounded-in , as it is technically styled, must receive a much le considerable glo . This is a principle every where admitted and acted upon, because the outline of the figured design being deranged by the washing, and sometimes in consequence of the peculiar texture of the cloth, the printer, in order to apply his grounding blocks properly, and to fit them to the contours of the figures already impre ed, is obliged to stretch the piece sometimes in the direction of the warp, and sometimes of the weft, which would be impo ible if they had been hard glazed by the calender. 3. The degree of glazing given to finished goods depends upon the taste of purchasers, and the nature of the article; but it is, in general, much le than for the first course of block-printing. The most complete calender probably in existence is that used by some of the eminent calico-printers of Alsace, as contrived by M. Charles Dollfus, and constructed by MM. Witz, Blech, and Co. 1. It pa es two pieces at once, and thus does double the work of any ordinary machine. 2. It supersedes the nece ity of having a workman to fold up the goods, as they emerge from the calender, with the aid of a self-acting folder. 3. It receives, at pleasure, the finished pieces upon a roller, instead of laying them in folds; and, by a very simple arrangement, it hinders the hands of the workmen from being caught by the rollers. Calenders, in consequence of the irregular demand for foreign orders and shipments, are worked very irregularly, being sometimes overloaded with duty, and at others altogether unemployed. A machine which can, when required, turn out a double quantity of goods must, therefore, be a desirable po e ion. For the first course of the printers, where high calendering is nece ary, the goods are usually pa ed twice through between two paper cylinders, to give that equality of surface which could not be obtained by one pa age, however strong the pre ure; and therefore the simplification of this calender will prove no economy. Besides, in order to increase the pre ure to the requisite degree, the cylinders would need to be made bulging at their middle part, and with such cylinders common smoothing could not be given; for the pieces would be glazed in the central line, and rough towards the edges. For pieces already printed in part, and requiring only to be grounded-in for other colours, the system of double effect has fewer objections, as a single pa age through the excellent calender described under Bleaching , page 134. , is found to answer very well. The most remarkable feature of M. Dollfus’s machine is its being managed by a single workman. Six or eight pieces are coiled upon the feed-roller, and they are neither pasted nor stitched together, but the ends are merely overlapped half a yard or so. The workman is careful not to enter the second piece till one third or one half of the first one has pa ed through on the other side, to prevent his being engro ed with two ends at a time. He must, no doubt, go sometimes to the one side and sometimes to the other of the machine to see that no folds or creases occur, and to be ready for supplying a fresh piece as the preceding one has gone through. The mechanism of the folder in the Alsace machine is truly ingenious: it performs extremely well, really saves the attendance of an extra workman, and is worthy the attention of manufacturers intent upon economising hand labour. The lapping-roller works by friction, and does its duty fully better than similar machines guided by the hand. The numerous accidents which have happened to the hands of workmen engaged in calenders should direct the attention towards its effective contrivance for preventing such misfortunes. These various improvements in the Alsace machine may be easily adapted to the ordinary calenders of almost every construction. The folder is a kind of cage, in the shape of an inverted pyramid, shut on the four sides, and open at top and bottom: the top orifice is about five inches, the bottom one an inch and a half: the front and the back, which are about four feet broad, are made of tin-plate or smooth pasteboard, and the two sides are made of strong sheet-iron; the whole being bolted together by small bars of iron. Upon the sheet-iron of the sides, iron uprights are fixed, perforated with holes, through which the whole cage is supported freely by means of studs that enter into them. One of the uprights is longer than the other, and bears a slot with a small knob, which, by means of the iron piece, joins the guide to the crank of the cylinder, and thereby communicates to the cage a seesaw movement: at the bottom extremity of the great upright, there is a piece of iron in the shape of an anchor, which may be raised, or lowered, or made fast, by screws. At the ends of this anchor are friction-rollers, which may be drawn out or pushed back and fixed by screws: these rollers lift alternately two levers made of wood, and fixed to a wooden shaft. The paws are also made of wood: they serve to lay down alternately the plies of the cloth which pa es upon the cage, and is folded zigzag upon the floor, or upon a board set below the cage: a motion imparted by the seesaw motion of the cage itself. See Stretching Machine . To protect the fingers of the workmen, above the small plate of the spreading-board or bar, there is another bar, which forms with the former an angle of about 75°: they come sufficiently near together for the opening at the summit of the angle to allow the cloth to pa through, but not the fingers. See Bulletin de la Société Industrielle de Mulhausen , No. 18. I shall now describe, more minutely, the structure of the powerful but le complicated calender mechanisms employed in the British manufactories. IMG:4147767755307473660_illo0210.jpg:Calender A front elevation of a four-rollered calender (five rollers are often introduced) for glazing goods is given in fig. 228. d l are two pasteboard or paper cylinders, each 20 inches in diameter, whose structure will be presently described: f is a cast-iron cylinder turned perfectly smooth (its fellow is often placed between e and d ): it is eight inches in diameter outside, four inches inside, with two inches thickne of metal. e is another pasteboard cylinder, fourteen inches in diameter: the strong cast-iron frame contains the bushes in which the journals of the rollers turn. o p , is one of the pair of levers for communicating a graduated pre ure according to the quality of the goods. Fig. 229 , 230. are end views of the same machine to show the working geer. The wheel s , on the end of the upper iron cylinder, is ten inches in diameter; that on the end of the fellow iron cylinder below (when it is present) is thirteen inches; both are connected by the larger carrier wheel t . The lower wheel u is one third larger than the upper wheel, and therefore receives from the carrier wheel t , a proportionally slower motion, which it imparts to the central pasteboard roller e , lying upon it, causing it to move one third more slowly than the upper pasteboard roller. Thus a sort of sliding motion is produced, which, by rubbing their surfaces, glazes the goods. The iron rollers are made hollow for the purpose of admitting either a hot roller of iron, or steam when hot calendering is required. The other cylinders used formerly to be made of wood, but it was liable to many defects. The advantage of the paper roller consists in its being devoid of any tendency to split, crack, or warp, especially when exposed to a considerable heat from the contact and pre ure of the hot iron rollers. The paper, moreover, takes a vastly finer polish, and, being of an elastic nature, pre es into every pore of the cloth, and smooths its surface more effectually than any wooden cylinder, however truly turned, could po ibly do. The paper cylinder is constructed as follows:—The axis of the cylinder is a strong square bar of the best wrought iron, cut to the proper length. Upon this bar a strong round plate of cast iron is first put, somewhat le in diameter than the cylinder when finished. A quantity of thick stout pasteboard is then procured, and cut into round pieces an inch larger in diameter than the iron plate. In the centre of the plates, and of every piece of the pasteboard, a square hole must be cut to receive the axis; and, the circle being divided into six equal parts, a hole must also be cut at each of the divisions, an inch or two within the rim. These pieces of pasteboard being succe ively put upon the axis, a long bolt of malleable iron, with a head at one end, and screwed at the other, is also introduced through each of the holes near the rim; and this is continued until a sufficient number of pasteboards are thus placed to form a cylinder of the length required, proper allowance being made for the compre ion which the pasteboard is afterwards to undergo. Another round plate is then applied, and, nuts being put upon the screws, the whole are screwed tight, and a cylinder formed. This cylinder is now to be placed in a stove, exposed to a strong heat, and must be kept there for at least several days; and, as the pasteboard shrinks by exposure to the heat, the screws must be frequently tightened until the whole ma has been compre ed as much as po ible. When the cylinder is thus brought to a sufficient degree of density it is removed from the stove; and, when allowed to cool, the pasteboard forms a substance almost inconceivably dense and hard. Nothing now remains but to turn the cylinder; and this is an operation of no slight labour and patience. The motion in turning must be slow, not exceeding about forty revolutions in a minute; the substance being now so hard and tough that tools of a very small size must be used to cut, or rather scrape it, until it is true. Three men are generally employed for the turning, even when the motion of the cylinder is effected by mechanical power, two being nece ary to sharpen tools, for the third who turns, as quickly as he blunts them. Let us suppose it to be a five-rollered machine: when a person stands in front of the calender, the cloth coming from behind above the uppermost cylinder 1, pa es between 1 and 2: proceeding behind 2, it again comes to the front between 2 and 3: between 3 and 4 it is once more carried behind, and, lastly, brought in front between 4 and 5, where it is received, and smoothly folded on a clean board, or in a box, by a person placed there for the purpose. In folding the cloth at this time, care must be taken that it may be loosely done, so that no mark may appear until it be again folded in the precise length and form into which the piece is to be made up. The folding may be done either by two persons or by one, with the aid of two sharp polished spikes placed at a proper distance, to ascertain the length of the fold, and to make the whole equal. When folded into lengths, it is again folded acro upon a smooth clean table, according to the shape intended, which varies with the different kinds of goods, or the particular market for which the goods are designed. When the pieces have received the proper fold, the last operation previous to packing them is the pre ing. This is commonly performed by placing a certain number of pieces, divided by thin smooth boards of wood, in a common screw pre , similar to those used by printers for taking out the impre ion left by the types in the printing-pre . Besides the wooden boards, a piece of glazed pasteboard is placed above and below every piece of cloth, that the outer folds may be as smooth and glo y as po ible. The operation of the common screw pre being found tedious and laborious, the hydraulic pre is now in all well mounted establishments had recourse to. See Hydraulic Pre . No improvements that have taken place in calendering can exceed the power and facility of the water pre : one of these pre es may be worked by two men, who can with great ease produce a pre ure of 400 tons; but, in considerable establishments, the pre es are worked by power. See Bandanna . The appearance and finish of the goods, in consequence of such an immense weight acting on them, are materially improved. The pre is also used for the purpose of packing; whereby the bale is rendered much more compact than formerly. It is commonly roped, ., while in this compre ed state; the dimensions, are therefore, greatly diminished from what they would otherwise be by any other method. For instance, the same quantity of goods packed in a bale are from one third to one half le bulky than if they were packed in a box with the utmost force of the hands. For lawns and muslins of a light texture, the operation of smoothing requires a different proce in some respects than close heavy fabrics. They only require to be slightly smoothed to remove any marks which they may have received at the bleaching; and, as their beauty depends rather on their transparency than their closene , the more the cylindrical form of the yarn is preserved the better. They are therefore put through a small machine, consisting of three rollers or cylinders; and, as the power required to move this is small, the person who attends it generally drives it by a small winch; or of the above calender, lightly loaded. In the thick fabrics of cloth, including those kinds which are used for many parts of household furniture, as also those for female dre , the operation of glazing is used both to add to the original beauty of the cloth, and to render it more impervious to dust or smoke. The glazing operation is performed entirely by the friction of any smooth substance upon the cloth; and, to render the glo brighter, a small quantity of bleached wax is previously rubbed over the surface. The operation of glazing by the common plan is very laborious, but the apparatus is of the most simple kind. A table is mounted with a thick stout cover of level and well-smoothed wood, forming an inclined plane; that side where the operator stands at work being the lowest. The table is generally placed near a wall, both for convenience in suspending the glazing apparatus, and for the sake of light. A long piece of wood is suspended in a groove formed between two longitudinal beams, placed parallel to the wall, and fixed to it. The groove resembles exactly the aperture between the shears of a common turning lathe. The lever, of which the groove may be supposed to be the centre or fulcrum, is faced at the bottom with a semi-cylindrical piece of finely polished flint, which gives the friction to the cloth stretched upon the table below. Above the flint are two cro handles, of which the operator lays hold, and moves them backward and forward with his hands, keeping the flint pre ing slightly upon the cloth. When he has glazed a portion equal to the breadth of the flint, he moves his lever between the shears sidewise, and glazes a fresh part: thus he proceeds from one side or selvage of the cloth to the other: and when all which is upon the table is sufficiently glazed, he draws it over, and exposes a new portion to the same operation. To preserve the cloth at a proper tension, it may be wound smoothly upon a roller or beam, which being set so as to revolve upon its own axis behind the table, another roller to receive the cloth may be placed before, both being secured by a catch, acting in a ratchet wheel. Of late years, however, a great part of the labour employed in glazing cloth has been saved, as the common four or five bowl calender has been altered to fit this purpose by direct pre ure. As a matter of accommodation, the different proce es of packing, cording of boxes, sheeting of trunks, and, in general, all the arrangements preparatory to shipments, and also the intimations and surveys nece ary for obtaining drawbacks, debentures, or bounties, according to the excise laws, are generally conducted at the calender houses where goods are finished. These operations sufficiently account for the general meaning attached to the word. CALICO-PRINTING ( Impre ion d’Indiennes , Fr.; Zeugdruckerei , Germ.) is the art of impre ing cotton cloth with topical dyes of more or le 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 le beautiful work, because flax po e es le 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 succe from time immemorial. The Egyptians, also, appear from Pliny’s testimony to have practised at a remote era some of the most refined proce es 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 expre ion ping it que dum coquit , is perfectly graphic and descriptive of calico-printing. The cotton chintz counterpanes of great size, called pallampoors , 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 from India a rich collection of cloths in this state of preparation, which I saw in the cabinet of the Société Industrielle of 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 ancient pall am poor , five French yards long, and two and a half broad, said to be the labour of Hindoo prince es, 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 French man; 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 E ex, and several others sprung up succe ively 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 ince ant 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 exce ive penalties annexed to smuggling, and raised a new alarm among the manufacturing population of Spital fields. The sapient legislators of that day, intimidated, as would appear, by the East London mobs, enacted in 1720 an absurd sumptuary law, prohibiting the wearing 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 oppre ive 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 the hated cotton, to be printed and worn, upon paying a duty of no le than sixpence the square yard. Under this burden, English calico-printing could not be expected to make a rapid progre . 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 you sand 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 3 d. 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 po e ed 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 many hands 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 po e es 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 you sand operatives of all orders, and thus procure a comfortable livelihood to probably not le than half a million of people. The repeal, in 1831, of the consolidated duty of 3 1 ⁄ 2 d. 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 2,280,000 l. levied upon 8,596,000 of pieces, of which, however, about three fourths were exported, with a drawback of 1,579,000 l. 2,281,512 pieces were consumed in that year at home. When the expenses of collection were deducted, only 350,000 l. found their way into the exchequer, for which pitiful sum you sands 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 dre within the reach of you sands 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 le 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, po ibly, 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 Paris i an 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 commi ion 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 the Société Industrielle of 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 33 1 ⁄ 2 aunes, = 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, ., or forwarded directly thence to our Ru ian 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 impre ions its surface must be freed from fibrous down by Singeing , and be rendered smooth by the Calender . See these articles. They are next bleached, with the exception of those destined for Turkey red. See Bleaching and Madder . 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, a candroy , 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 the cylinder 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 succe ion 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 impre ion. As the slips are of equal thickne 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 pre es 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 impre ion 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 le 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 le than 2016 applications will be nece ary. 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 cro ed to prevent warping, and the third sycamore for engraving. IMG:4147767755307473660_illo0216.png: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 table B , 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 thickne 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 brackets C for supporting the axles of the roller E , which carries the white calico to be printed. The hanging rollers E are laid acro 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 stool D . The printer stretches a length of the piece upon his table A 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 impre ion, and marks this line A 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 line A B , as indicated by the four points a 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 points a b fall on c d , so as to have at the second stamp a′ b′ , covering a b and c′ 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 proce . 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. These rent rages are 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 2 1 ⁄ 2 to 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 succe ion, 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 pa es between the prism and the engraved blocks, and receives succe ive impre ions from them as it is succe ively drawn through by a winding cylinder. The blocks are pre ed against the calico through the agency of springs, which imitate the elastic pre ure 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. IMG:4147767755307473660_illo0217.png: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 impre ions to pieces of calico pa ed 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 pre ure upon a strong iron mandrel, which serves as its turning shaft. To facilitate the transfer of the impre ion 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 pre es the calico against this elastic cushion, and thereby prints it as it revolves. Let A be 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. B is a large iron drum or roller, turning in bearings of the end frames of the machine. Against that drum the engraved cylinder A is pre ed by weights or screws; the weights acting steadily, by levers, upon its bra bearings. Round the drum B the endle web of felt or blanket stuff a a , travels in the direction of the arrow, being carried round along with the drum B , which again is turned by the friction of contact with the cylinder A . c represents a clothed wooden roller, partly plunged into the thickened colour of the trough D D . That roller is also made to bear, with a moderate force, against A , and thus receives, by friction, in some cases, a movement of rotation. But it is preferable to drive the roller C from the cylinder A , 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 cylinder A is pre ed upwards against B , it is obvious that the bearers of the trough and its roller must be attached to the bearings of the cylinder A , in order to preserve its contact with the colour-roller C . b is a sharp-edged ruler of gun-metal or steel, called the colour doctor , screwed between two gun-metal stiffening bars; the edge of which wiper is slightly pre ed as a tangent upon the engraved roller A . 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. c is another similar sharp-edged ruler, called the lint 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. This lint doctor is pre ed very slightly upon the cylinder A , and has no traverse motion. What was stated with regard to the bearers of the colour trough D , namely, that they are connected, and moved up and down together with the bearings of the cylinder A , 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 letter d , is introduced or carried in along with the blanket stuff a a , in the direction of the arrow, and is moved onward by the pre ure of the revolving cylinder A , so as to receive the impre ion 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 a lens, 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 oxidize ment by a chalky paste. This hardened roller is put into a pre of a peculiar construction, where, by a rotatory pre ure, 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 pre , 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 the die ; the second, obtained from it by a proce like that of a milling tool, is called the mill . 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 roller die is placed in the upper bed of a screw pre , 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. The die being now brought down by a powerful screw, worked by toothed wheel-work, and made to pre 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 pre 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 pre ure 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 proce 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 pre , 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 impre ion in relief. When cylinders for a three-coloured machine are wanted, three such mills are 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 figured mills are 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 transmi ion 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 pa ing 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-handedne can produce nothing approaching in excellence to the engraved cylinders of Manchester,—a painful admi ion, 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 called surface 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 the union printing machine. In mounting three or more cylinders in one frame, many more adjustments become nece ary than those described above. The first and most important is that which ensures the correspondence between the parts of the figures in the succe ive printing rollers, for unle 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 pre ure cylinder B , 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 acro the piece; and thus, by both together, each cylinder may be made to work symmetrically with its fellows. IMG:4147767755307473660_illo0220.png:Cylinder printing machine Fig. 234 enlarged (227 kB) Fig. 234. is a cro section of a four-colour cylinder machine, by which the working parts are clearly illustrated. A A A is 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 bolts a a a a . B is the large iron pre ure cylinder, which rests with its gudgeons in bearings or bushes, which can be shifted up and down in slots of the side cheeks A A . These bushes are suspended from powerful screws b , which turn in bra nuts, made fast to the top of the frame A , as is plainly shown in the figure. These screws serve to counteract the strong pre ure applied beneath that cylinder, by the engraved cylinders D E . C D E F are 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 pre upon the iron mandrels, round which as shafts they revolve. The first and last cylinder C and F are mounted in bra bearings, which may be shifted in horizontal slots of the frame A . The pre ure roller B , against whose surface they bear with a very little obliquity downwards, may be nicely adjusted to that pre ure by its elevating and depre ing screws. By this means C and F can be adjusted to B with geometrical precision, and made to pre it in truly opposite directions. The bearings of the cylinders D and E are lodged also in slots of the frame A , which point obliquely upwards, towards the centre of B . The pre ure of these two print 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 pre ure applied to the cylinders C and F , partakes of the nature of a spring; a circumstance e ential to their working smoothly, on account of the occasional inequalities in the thickne of the felt web and the calico. acting with levers against the bearings. The bearings of D are, at each of their ends, acted upon by cylindrical rods, which slide in long tubular bo es of the frame, and pre with their nuts g at their under end upon the small arms of two strong levers G , which lie on each side of the machine, and whose fulcrum is at h (in the lower corner at the left hand). The long arms of these levers G , are loaded with weights H , whereby they are made to pre up against the bearings of the roller D , with any degree of force, by screwing up the nut g , and hanging on the requisite weights. The manner in which the cylinder E is pre ed up against B , is by a similar construction to that just described. With each of its bearings, there is connected by the link k , a curved lever I , whose fulcrum or centre of motion is at the bolt l . To the outer end of this lever, a screw, m , is attached, which pre es downwards upon the link n , connected with the small arm of the strong lever k , whose centre of motion is at o . By turning therefore the screw m , the weight L , laid upon the end of the long arm of the lever K (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 cylinder E . In tracing the operation of this exquisite printing machine, we shall begin with the first engraved cylinder C . Its bearings or bushes shift, as was already stated, in slots of the frame A . Each of them consists of a round piece of iron, to which the end of the screw c is joined, in the same way as at d , in the opposite side. In each of these iron bearings, a concave bra is inserted to support the collar of the shaft, and in a dovetailed slit of this bra , a sliding piece is fitted, upon which a set or adjusting screw in the iron bearing acts, and which, being forced against the copper cylinder C , 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 trough q , and the colour roller M . 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 roller M . The trough and its roller may be shifted both together into contact with the printing cylinder C , by means of the screw r . Near s , seen above the roller, C , and t below 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 bra es, which may be adjusted by the screws u and V , working in the respective brackets, which carry their bra es, and are made fast to the iron bearings of the cylinder. frame work ), which act on a pair of small levers x , (one on each side of the machine,) and thus, by means of the chains, tend to lift the arms y , attached to the end axles of the doctor. The pre ure of the lint doctor upon the cylinder C , is performed by the screw z , pre ing upon an arm which projects downwards, and is attached to the axle of that doctor. The bearings of the second printing cylinder D , consist at each end of a ma of iron (removed in the drawing to show the mechanism below it), which shifts in the slanting slot of the frame A . In each of these ma es there is another piece of iron, which slides in the transverse direction, and may be shifted by the adjusting screw a′ fixed to it, and working in a nut cast upon the principal bearing above described. To the inner bearings, which carry the bra es in which the shaft lies, are screwed the two curved arms b′ b′ to which are attached the bearings, ., for the colour trough, and the doctors. In these bra es there are also dovetailed pieces, which slide and are pre ed 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 cylinder B . N , is the colour roller of D , and d′ the colour trough, which rests by its board upon the lever e′ ; whose centres of motion f′ , are made fast to the curved arms b′ , fixed at the bearings of the cylinder, and whose ends are suspended by screws g′ ; whereby the colour roller N , may be pre ed with greater or le force to the cylinder D . h′ and i′ are the two doctors of this cylinder; the former being the colour, the latter the lint doctor. They rest, as was said of the cylinder C , in bra es which are adjustable by means of screws, that work in the studs or brackets by which the bra es 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′ and l′ are these set screws for the colour and lint doctors. The pre ure of the former upon or links o′ , upon arms attached to each end of the axis of the doctor. (See the left hand side of the figure near the bottom). The lint-doctor i′ , is pre ed in a similar way at the other side upon the cylinder D , by the weights acting upon levers p′ , and by rods q′ upon arms fixed at each end of the axis of the doctor. The bearings of the third printing cylinder E , are of exactly the same construction as that above described, and therefore require no particular detail. The lint doctor s , is here pre ed upon the engraved cylinder by screws t′ , working in the ends of studs or arms fixed upon each end of the axis of the doctor, and pre ing upon flanges cast upon the brackets in which the bra es of the doctor’s axis lie, which are made fast to the bearings of the cylinder E . The bearings of the fourth copper cylinder F , are also constructed in a similar way. Each consists of a first bearing, to which is joined the end of the screw d , by which it is made to slide in a slot of the frame. Another bearing, which contains the bra for the shaft of the cylinder, can be shifted up and down in a transverse direction by a screw z′ , of the second bearing, working in a nut cast upon the first bearing. To this secondary bearing, plates are made fast by the screws v′ v′ to the inside, to carry the studs or brackets of the doctors x′ and y′ . In the bra es of the cylinder shaft, dovetailed pieces are made to slide, being pre ed by set screws w′ , against the engraved cylinder F , 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 doctor y′ 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. of arms b′ ′ , attached to the ends of the axis of the doctor. The pre ure of the lint doctor x′ is given by screws c′ ′ , working in arms attached to the ends of the axis of the doctor, and pre ing upon the flanges d′ ′ , cast upon the brackets which carry the bra es for the axis of the doctor. These bra es are themselves adjustable, like those of all the other cylinders, by set screws in the brackets, which work in the nuts formed in the bra es. e′ ′ e′ ′ , is the endle web of felt stuff which goes round the cylinder B , and constitutes the soft elastic surface upon which the printing cylinders C , D , E , and F exercise their pre ure. This endle felt is pa ed 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 impre ions. In its return to the machine in the direction of the arrow, it is led over a guide roller o , 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 frame A , are two eccentrics, one of which serves to give a vibratory traverse movement to the colour doctors s′ , h′ , and r′ of the three cylinders, C , D , and E whilst the other causes the colour doctor y′ of the cylinder F , to make lateral vibrations. IMG:4147767755307473660_illo0221.png:Wooden bar Q is one of a pair of cast-iron brackets, screwed on at the back of the side-frames or cheeks A A , to carry the roller filled with white calico R , ready for the printing operations. Upon the end of the shaft whereon the calico is coiled, a pulley is fixed, over which a rope pa es suspending a weight in order to produce friction, and thereby resistance to the action which tends to unwind the calico. In winding it upon that and similar rollers, the calico is smoothed and expanded in breadth by being pa ed over one or more grooved rods, or over a wooden bar S , fig. 235. the surface of which is covered with wire, so as to have the appearance of a united right and left-handed screw. By this device, the calico, folded or creased at any part, is stretched laterally from the centre, and made level. It then pa es over the guide-roller o , where it comes upon the surface of the felt e′ ′ e′ ′ , and thence proceeds under its guidance to the series of printing cylinders. Three and four-colour machines, similar to the above, are now at work in many establishments in Lancashire, which will turn off a piece of 28 yards per minute, each of the three or four cylinders applying its peculiar part of the pattern to the cloth as it pa es along, by ceasele rotation of the unwearied wheels. At this rate, the astonishing length of one mile of many-coloured web is printed with elegant flowers and other figures in an hour. When we call to mind how much knowledge and skill are involved in this proce , we may fairly consider it as the greatest achievement of chemical and mechanical science. Before entering upon the different styles of work which constitute calico printing, I shall treat, in the first place, of what is common to them all, namely, the thickening of the mordants and colours. This is an operation of the greatest importance towards the succe ful practice of the art. Several circumstances may require the consistence of the thickening to be varied; such as the nature of the mordant, its density, and its acidity. A strong acid mordant cannot be easily thickened with starch; but it may be by roasted starch, vulgarly called British gum, and by gum arabic or senegal. Some mordants which seem sufficiently inspi ated with starch, liquefy in the course of a few days; and being apt to run in the printing-on make blotted work. In France, this evil is readily obviated, by adding one ounce of spirits of wine to half a gallon of colour; a remedy which the English excise duties render too costly. The very same mordant, when inspi ated to different degrees, produces different tints in the dye-copper; a difference due to the increased bulk from the thickening substance; thus, the same mordant, thickened with starch, furnishes a darker shade than when thickened with gum. Yet there are circumstances in which the latter is preferred, because it communicates more transparency to the dyes, and because, in spite of the washing, more or le of the starch always sticks to the mordant. The gum has the inconvenience, however, of drying too speedily, and of also increasing too much the volume of the mordants; by both of which causes it obstructs their combination with the stuff, and the tints become thin or scratchy. The substances generally employed as thickeners, are the following :— Wheat starch. Flour. Roasted starch. Gum senegal. Gum tragacanth. Salep. Pipe-clay, mixed with gum senegal. Sulphate of lead. Sugar. Mola es. Glue. After thickening with gum, we ought to avoid adding metallic solutions in the liquid state; such as nitrate of iron, of copper, solutions of tin, of subacetate of lead, .; as they po e the property of coagulating gum. I shall take care to specify the nature and proportion of thickening to be employed for each colour; a most important matter, hitherto neglected by English writers upon calico printing. The atmosphere of the printing shops should never be allowed to cool under 65° or 70° F.; and it should be heated by proper stoves in cold weather, but not rendered too dry. The temperature and moisture should therefore both be regulated with the aid of thermometers and hygrometers, as they exercise a great influence upon all the printing proce es, and especially upon the combination of the mordant with the cloth. In the course of the desiccation, a portion of the acetic acid evaporates with the water, and subacetates are formed, which combine with the stuff in proportion as the solvent principle escapes; the water as it evaporates carries off acetic acid with it, and thereby aids the fixation of bases. These remarks are peculiarly appropriate to delicate impre ions by the cylinder machine, where the printing and drying are both rapidly effected. In the lapis lazuli style, the strong mordants are apt to produce patches, being thickened with pipe-clay and gum, which obstruct the evaporation of the acids. They are therefore apt to remain, and to di olve a portion of the mordants at their immersion in the blue vat, or at any rate, in the dung bath. In such a case a hot and humid air is indispensable, after the application of the mordants; and sometimes the stuffs so impregnated, must be suspended in a damp chamber. To prevent the resist pastes becoming rapidly crusty, substances apparently usele are mixed with them, but which act beneficially by their hygrometric qualities, in retarding the desiccation. Oil also is sometimes added with that view. It is often observed that goods printed upon the same day, and with the same mordant, exhibit inequalities in their tints. Sometimes the colour is strong and decided in one part of the piece, while it is dull and meagre in another. The latter has been printed in too dry an atmosphere. In such circumstances a neutral mordant answers best, especially if the goods be dried in a hot flue, through which humid vapours are in constant circulation. In padding, where the whole surface of the calico is imbued with mordant, the drying apartment or flue, in which a great many pieces are exposed at once, should be so constructed as to afford a ready outlet to the aqueous and acid exhalations. The cloth ought to be introduced into it in a distended state; because the acetic acid may accumulate in the foldings, and di olve out the earthy or metallic base of the mordant, causing white and gray spots in such parts of the printed goods. Fans may be employed with great advantage, combined with Hot Flues . (See this article.) In the colour laboratory, all the decoctions requisite for the print work should be ready prepared. They are best made by a steam heat, by means of copper boilers of a cylindric form, rounded at the bottom, and encased within a cast-iron cylinder, the steam being supplied to the space between the two ve els, and the dye-stuff and water being introduced into the interior one, which for some delicate purposes may be made of tin, or copper tinned inside. A range of such steam apparatus should be placed either along one of the side walls, or in the middle line of the laboratory. Proper tables, drawers, phials, with chemical reagents, measures, balances, ., should also be provided. The most useful dye-extracts are the following :— Decoction of logwood, of Brazil wood, of Persian berries, of quercitron bark, of nut-galls, of old fustic, of archil or cutbear, of cochineal, of cochineal with ammonia, of catechu. The following mordants should also be kept ready prepared :— 1. Aluminous mordant. 1. Take 50 gallons of boiling water. 1. Take 100 lbs. of alum. 1. Take 10 lbs. of soda crystals. 1. Take 75 lbs. of acetate of lead. The soda should be added slowly to the solution of the alum in the water, and when the effervescence is finished, the pulverized acetate of lead is put in and well stirred about till it be all di olved and decomposed. During the cooling, the mixture should be raked up a few times, and then allowed to settle. The supernatant liquor is the mordant; it has a density of 11° or 11 1 ⁄ 2 ° Baumé. It serves for reds and pinks, and enters into the composition of puce and lilac. 2. Aluminous mordant. 2. Take 50 gallons of water. 2. Take 100 lbs. of alum. 2. Take 10 lbs. of soda crystals. 2. Take 100 lbs. of acetate of lead;—operate as above directed. The supernatant liquor here has a density of 12° Baumé; it is employed for lapis resists or reserves, and the cylinder printing of madder reds. 3. Aluminous mordant. 3. Take 50 gallons of water. 3. Take 100 lbs. of alum. 3. Take 6 lbs. of soda crystals. 3. Take 50 lbs. of acetate of lead;—operate as above directed. This mordant is employed for uniform yellow grounds. 4. Aluminous mordant. This is made by adding potash to a solution of alum, till its earth begins to be separated, then boiling the mixture to precipitate the sub sulphate of alumina, which is to be strained upon a filter, and di olved in acetic acid of moderate strength with the aid of heat. This mordant is very rich in alumina, and marks 20° B. 5. Aluminous mordant. 5. Take 12 1 ⁄ 2 gallons of water. 5. Take 100 lbs. of alum. 5. Take 150 lbs. of liquid pyro lignite of lime at 11 1 ⁄ 2 ° Baumé. This mordant is made with heat like the first; after cooling, some alum crystallizes, and it marks only 12 1 ⁄ 2 ° B. A mordant is made by solution of alum in potash, commonly called — 6. Aluminate of potash. The caustic lye is prepared by boiling together for an hour 100 gallons of water, 200 lbs. of potash, and 80 lbs. of quicklime; the mixture is then allowed to settle, the supernatant liquor is decanted, and evaporated till its density be 35° B. In 30 gallons of that lye at a boiling heat, 100 lbs. of ground alum are to be di olved. On cooling, crystals of sulphate of potash separate. The clear liquor is to be decanted off, and the crystals being washed with a little water, this is to be added to the lye. About 33 gallons of mordant should be obtained. Mordant for Black. The pyro lignite of iron called iron liquor in this country, is the only mordant used in calico-printing for black, violet, puce, and brown colours. The acetate of alumina, prepared from pyro lig no us acid, is much used by the calico-printers under the name of red or yellow liquor, being employed for these dyes. We may observe that a strong mordant, like No. 2., does not keep so well as one of mean density, such as No 1. Too much mordant relatively to the demands of the works should therefore not be made at a time. There are eight different styles of calico-printing, each requiring different methods of manipulation, and peculiar proce es. 1. The madder style, to which the best chintzes belong, in which the mordants are applied to the white cloth with many precautions, and the colours are afterwards brought up in the dye-bath. These constitute permanent prints. 2. The padding or plaquage style, in which the whole surface of the calico is imbued with a mordant, upon which afterwards different coloured figures may be raised, by the topical application of other mordants joined to the action of the dye-bath. 3. The reserve style, where the white cloth is impre ed with figures in resist paste, and is afterwards subjected first to a cold dye, as the indigo vat, and then to a hot dye-bath, with the effect of producing white or coloured spots upon a blue ground. 4. The discharge or rongeant style, in which thickened acidulous matter either pure or mixed with mordants, is imprinted in certain points upon the cloth, which is afterwards padded with a dark-coloured mordant, and then dyed, with the effect of showing bright figures on a darkish ground. 5. China blues; a style resembling blue stone-ware, which requires very peculiar treatment. 6. The decolouring or enlevage style; by the topical application of chlorine or chromic acid to dyed goods. This is sometimes called a discharge. 7. Steam colours; a style in which a mixture of dye extracts and mordants are topically applied to calico, while the chemical reaction which fixes the colours to the fibre called spirit by dyers. These colours are brilliant but fugitive. I. The madder style; called by some dip colours. The true chintz patterns belong to it; they have from 5 to 7 colours, several of which are grounded-in after the first dye has been given in the madder bath. In dyeing with madder; sumach, fustic or quercitron, is sometimes added to the bath, in order to produce a variety of tints with the various mordants at one operation. 1. Suppose we wish to produce flowers or figures of any kind containing red, purple, and black colours, we may apply the three mordants at once, by the three-colour cylinder machine, putting into the first trough acetate of alumina thickened; into the second, acetate of iron; and into the third, a mixture of the two; then drying in the air for a few days to fix the iron, dunging, and dyeing up in a bath of madder and sumach. If we wish to procure the finest madder reds and pinks, besides the purple and black, we must apply at first only the acetate of alumina of two densities, by two cylinders, dry, dung, and dye up, in a madder bath. The mordants of iron liquor for the black, and of iron liquor mixed with the aluminous for purple, must be now grounded-in by blocks, taking care to insert these mordants into their precise spots: the goods being then dried with airing for several days, and next dunged, are dyed up in a bath of madder and sumach. They must be afterwards cleared by branning. See Bran , Dunging , and Madder . 2. Suppose we wish to produce yellow with red, pink, purple and black; in this case the second dye-bath should contain quercitron or fustic, and the spots intended to be yellow should receive the acetate of alumina mordant. 3. The mordant for a full red may be acetate of alumina, of spec. grav. 1·055 thickened with starch, and tinged with Brazil wood; that for a pale red or pink, the same at spec. gravity 1·014, thickened with gum; that for a middling red, the same at spec. gravity, 1·027, thickened with British gum; and for distinction’s sake, it may be tinged yellow with Persian berries. The mordant for black is a pyro lig no us acetate of iron, of specific gravity 1·04; for purple the same, diluted with six times its volume of water; for chocolate, that iron liquor mixed with acetate of alumina, in various proportions according to the shade wanted. Sumach is mixed with the madder for all these colours except for the purple. The quantity of madder required varies according to the body of colour to be put upon the cloth, being from one pound per piece to three or even four. The goods must be entered when the copper is cool, be gradually heated during two or three hours, up to ebullition, and sometimes boiled for a quarter of an hour; the pieces being all the while turned with a wince from the one side of the copper to the other. (See Wince .) They are then washed and boiled in bran and water for ten or fifteen minutes. When there is much white ground in the chintz, they must be branned a second or even a third time, with alternate washing in the dash-wheel. To complete the purification of the white, they are spread upon the gra for a few days; or what is more expeditious, and equally good if delicately managed, they are winced for a few minutes in a weak solution of chloride of lime. 4. In the grounding-in for yellow, after madder reds, the aluminous mordant being applied, ., the piece is dyed, for about an hour, with one pound of quercitron bark, the infusion being gradually heated to 150° or 160°, but not higher. 5. A yellow is sometimes applied in chintz work after the other colours are dyed, by means of a decoction of Persian berries mixed with the aluminous mordant, thickened with flour or gum, and printed-on with the block; the piece, when dry, is pa ed through a weak carbonated alkaline water, or lime water, then washed and dried for the market. 6. Black mordant. —Take half a gallon of acetate of iron, of spec. grav. 1·04, 4 ounces of starch, and 4 ounces of flour. The starch must first be moistened with the acetate, then the flour must be added, the rest of the acetate well mixed with both, and the whole made to boil over a brisk fire for five minutes, stirring meanwhile to prevent adhesion to the bottom of the pot. The colour must be poured into an earthen pipkin, and well mixed with half an ounce of gallipoli oil. In general, all the mordants, thickened with starch and flour, must be boiled, for a few minutes. With British gum or common gum, they must be heated to 160° F., or thereby, for the purpose merely of di olving them. The latter should be pa ed through a sieve to separate the impurities often present in common gum. 7. Puce mordant. —Take a quart of acetate of alumina and acetate of iron, each of spec. grav. 1·04, mixed and thickened like the black, No. 6. To give the puce a reddish tinge, the acetate of alumina should have a specific gravity of 1·048, and the iron liquor only 1·007. Red mordants are thickened with British gum, and are sufficiently coloured with the addition of any tingeing decoction. 8. Violet mordants. —These consist either of a very weak solution of acetate of iron, of spec. gravity 1·007, for example; or of a little of the stronger acetate of 1·04, mixed with acetate of alumina, and a little acetate of copper, thickened with starch or British gum. The shades may be indefinitely varied by varying the proportions of the acetates. When black is one of the colours wanted, its mordant is very commonly printed-on first, and the goods are then hung upon poles in the drying-room, where they are aired for a few days, in order to fix the iron by its peroxidize ment; the mordants for red, violet, ., are then grounded in, and the pieces are dyed up, after dunging and washing, in the madder bath, into which, for certain shades, sumach, galls, or fustic, is added. The goods are brightened with a boil in soap water; occasionally also in a bath, containing a small quantity of solution of tin or common salt. The following mode of brightening is much extolled by the French, who are famous for their reds and roses. 1. A soap boil of forty minutes, at the rate of 1 pound for every 2 pieces. Rinse in clear water. 2. Pa through chloride of soda solution of such strength that two parts of it decolour one part of Gay Lu ac’s test liquor. See Chloride of Lime and Indigo . Wince the pieces through it for 40 minutes. Rinse again. 3. Pa it again through the soap bath, No. 1. 4. Brighten it in a large bath of boiling water, containing 4 pounds of soap, and 1 pound of a cream-consistenced salt of tin, containing nearly half its weight of the muriate of tin, combined with as much nitric acid of spec. grav. 1·288. This strong nitro-muriate having been diluted with a little water, is to be slowly poured into the bath of soap water, and well mixed by stirring. The pieces are now put in, and winced through it for one half, or three quarters of an hour. 5. Repeat the soap boil, No. 1. Rinse and dry. 9. Grounding in of Indigo blue. Take half a gallon of water of 120° F., 8 ounces of ground indigo, and 8 ounces of red sulphuret of arsenic (orpiment), 8 ounces of quicklime, mix together, and heat the mixture to the boiling point; withdraw from the fire, and add, when it is lukewarm, 6 ounces of carbonate of soda, stir and leave the whole at rest till the next day. Then decant the clear liquor, and thicken every quart of it with half a pound of gum. This colour ought to be green, and be preserved in a close ve el. When used it is put into a pot with a narrow orifice, the pencil is dipped into it, wiped on the edge of the pot, and immediately applied by hand. This plan is tedious, and is nearly superseded by the following grounding blue. Take half a gallon of caustic soda lye of spec. grav. 1·15, heated to 120° F. 12 ounces of hydrate of protoxide of tin, obtained by precipitating it from the muriate of tin by solution of potash. IMG:4147767755307473660_illo0226.png:Canva frame 8 ounces of ground indigo; heat these mixed ingredients to the boiling point, then move the pot off and on the fire two or three times in succe ion, and finally thicken, with 3 pounds of raw sugar. In order to apply this by the block, the following apparatus is employed, called the canva frame ; figs. 236. 237. It is formed of a copper case or box A , in which is laid a frame B , filled with pretty stout canva . The box communicates by a tube with the cistern C , mounted with a stop-cock D . Fig. 237. represents the apparatus in plan: A , the box; B , the canva , with its edges a a a a , fixed by pin points to the sides. The colour is teared ( tiré ), or spread even, with a wooden scraper as broad as the canva . In working with this apparatus, the colour being contained in the ve el C is drawn off into the case A , by opening the stop-cock D , till it rises to the level of the canva . The instant before the printer daubs the block upon the canva , the tearer ( tireur ), boy or girl, runs the scraper acro it to renew its surface; and the printer immediately transfers the colour to the cloth. In this kind of printing great skill is required to give evenly impre ions. As the blue is usually applied to somewhat large designs, it is very apt to run; an inconvenience counteracted by dusting fine dry sand upon the cloth as soon as it is blocked. The goods must be washed within 24 hours after being printed. 10. Topical grounding blue for the cylinder pre . Take 3 1 ⁄ 2 gallons of caustic soda lye of spec. grav. 1·15. Take 3 1 ⁄ 2 lbs. of ground indigo. Take 5 lbs. of precipitated protoxide of tin (as above). Boil the mixed ingredients for ten minutes, take them from the fire, and add, first, 3 lbs. of Venice turpentine; then 11 lbs. of gum. Put this mixture into the colour trough, print with it, and after two days wash in the dash-wheel; then pa it through a soap bath, along with a little soda, to brighten the blue, and to take off its greyish tint. The use of the turpentine is easily explained; it serves to exclude the atmospherical oxygen, and prevent the regeneration of the indigo blue, before it is spread upon the cloth. After the application to white calico of a similar blue, into which a little acid muriate of tin has been put, the goods are dipped for ten minutes in thin milk of lime, shaking the frame all the time. They are then washed, and cleared with a soap boil. The following colour remains long in the deoxidized state from its containing 8 ounces of indigo, 10 ounces of hydrated protoxide of tin, and 1 1 ⁄ 2 pounds of solution of muriate of tin, to 2 quarts of soda lye of 1·15, thickened with 2 1 ⁄ 2 pounds of gum. This blue may be applied by either the block or the cylinder. 11. Topical Pru ian blue for grounding. 2 quarts of water with 8 ounces of starch, are to be mixed and boiled; add 2 1 ⁄ 4 ounces of a liquid Pru ian blue colour, prepared by triturating three quarters of an ounce of that pigment with as much muriatic acid, leaving the ingredients to react upon each other for 24 hours, and then adding three quarters of an ounce of water. Add 4 ounces of liquid perchloride of tin (oxy muriate). Mix all together, and pa through a searce. This colour is not very fast; cloth printed with it will bear only rinsing. 12. Pru ian blue figures are impre ed as follows :— Di olve 8 ounces of sulphate of iron, and as much acetate of lead, separately in 2 quarts of boiling water; mix well, and settle. Take one quart of this clear liquor reduced to spec. grav. 1·02, one quart of mucilage containing 3 pounds of gum, coloured with a little pru iate of potash, mix into a mordant, and print it on with the cylinder. Two days afterwards wash in tepid water containing a little chalk, and then pa the cloth through a solution of pru iate of potash in water, sharpened with a little muriatic acid, till it takes the desired hue. Finally rinse. II. The padding or plaquage style, called foulard also by the French. See Padding . Any mordant whatever, such as the acetates of alumina, or of iron, or their mixture, may be applied to the piece by the padding machine, after which it is dried in the HOT-FLUE , washed, dunged, dyed, washed, and brightened. Colours from metallic oxides are very elegantly applied by the padding proce . Thus the iron buff, the manganese bronze, and the chrome yellows and greens are given. 1. Iron buff or chamois. Take 50 gallons of boiling water; Take 150 pounds of sulphate of iron; di olve along with Take 10 pounds of alum; which partly saturate by the gradual addition of Take 5 pounds of crystals of soda; and in this mixture di olve Take 50 pounds of pyro lig no us acetate of lead. Allow the whole to settle, and draw off the clear supernatant liquid. For furniture prints this bath should have the spec. grav. 1·07. The calico being padded in it, is to be dried in the hot-flue; and after 48 hours suspension is to be washed in water at 170° containing some chalk, by the wince apparatus. It is then washed, by the same apparatus, in hot water, containing a pailful of soda lye of spec. grav. 1·04. For light tints the padding liquor should be reduced to the spec. grav. 1·01. The dye in either case may be brightened by wincing through a weak solution of chloride of lime. Nitrate of iron diffused through a body of water may be also used for padding, with alternate washings in water, and a final wincing in a weak alkaline lye. With a stronger solution, similar to the first, the boot-top colour is given. 2. The bronze or solitaire . The goods are to be padded in a solution of the sulphate or muriate of manganese, of a strength proportional to the shade desired, dried in the hot-flue, and then raised by wincing them in a boiling-hot caustic lye, of spec. grav. 1·08, and next through a weak solution of chloride of lime, or soda. They are afterwards rinsed. Instead of pa ing them through the chloride, they may be merely exposed to the air till the manganese attracts oxygen, then rinsed, and dried. When the manganese solution has the density of 1·027, it gives a light shade; at the density of 1·06, a shade of moderate depth, and at 1·12 a dark tint. The texture of the stuff is apt to be injured during the oxidation of the manganese. 3. Carmelite is obtained by padding in a mixture of muriate or sulphate of manganese and acetate of iron, then proceeding as above. 4. Copper green is given by padding in a mixed solution of sulphate and acetate of copper with a little glue, drying in the hot-flue, and next day padding in a caustic lye of spec. grav. 1·05. The goods are then rinsed, and padded through a solution made with 8 ounces of arsenious acid combined with 4 ounces of potash diluted with 2 gallons of water. They are finally rinsed and dried. 5. Olive and cinnamon colours are given by padding through mixed solutions of the acetate of iron and sulphate of copper; drying, and padding in a caustic lye of spec. grav. 1·05. 6. Green and solitaire form a pleasing umber, or hellebore shade, which may be obtained by padding through a mixed solution of manganese and ace to-sulphate of copper and raising the shades, as above prescribed. 7. Chrome yellow. Pad in a solution of bichromate of potash containing 8 ounces of it to the gallon of water; then dry with moderate heat, and pad in a solution of acetate or nitrate of lead, containing 6 or 8 ounces in the gallon of water; wash, and dry. Or we may pad first in a solution of acetate of lead containing a little glue; dry, and pad in solution of bichromate of potash. Then rinse. The last proce is apt to occasion cloudine . To obtain a light lemon tint, we must pad in a solution of acetate of lead of double the above strength, or 16 ounces to the gallon, then wince the pieces through weak milk of lime, rince, pad through bichromate of potash, rinse, and dry. 8. Chrome orange. Pad through a mixed solution of the subacetate and acetate of lead, three times in succe ion, and dry in the hot-flue; then wince for ten minutes through weak milk of lime; rinse; wince for a quarter of an hour in a warm solution of bichromate of potash; and finally raise the colour by wincing the goods through hot lime water. 9. Pru ian blue. Pad in the preceding chamois liquor of the spec. grav. 1·007; dry in the hot-flue; wince well in chalky water at 160° F., and then dye by wincing in the following liquor :— Di olve 5 ounces of pru iate of potash, in 25 gallons of water heated to 90° or 100°, adding 2 ounces of sulphuric acid; afterwards rinse, and brighten in a very dilute sulphuric acid. 10. Green is given by padding goods, previously dyed in the indigo vat, in a solution of acetate of lead containing a little glue; and then padding them in a warm solution of bichromate of potash; finally rinsing and drying.