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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 1
[trade dispatches]
« The Little Wonder » is the name of a new cylinder treadle machine, specially adapted for paper bags and handbills. The machine contains several new features, and can be worked at a greater speed than treadle machines of the ordinary patterns.
Paper and Press describes and figures a new plate-printing machine, the special feature of which is a mechanical wiper, which relieves the printer of the dirty work of wiping the ink from the face of the plate by hand. The movement of the human wrist is admirably imitated, and the hitherto insuperable difficulty of mechanically wiping the plate clean without wiping out the fine lines, has been overcome. It is applicable either to flat or cylindrical plates. To prevent the wiping-cloth from inking-up, and thereby losing its efficiency, a long cloth is used, which is fed at such a speed over the face of the block, when the latter is not in contact with the face of the plate, that the wiping surface is constantly renewed.
The Anderson reporting machine, a kind of simplified type-writer, of American origin, appears to be a decided success. It has been operated by a little girl, thirteen years of age, at the rate of 237 words per minute. The machine is held in the lap of the operator, who, after a little practice, has no occasion to look at the keys, and the secret of its great speed lies in the fact that any combination of the keys may be struck at a single impulse of the hand, without moving the position of the fingers.
Several new and very important inventions in lithographic appliances are recorded in our English exchanges. One of these is a patent called Litho-plate. A thin calcareous deposit of the same nature as the lithographic stone is artificially produced upon a metal plate. The surface is said to be superior to that of the natural stone; there is an enormous gain in lightness and portability; and the cost is only about one-fourth. The idea is not altogether new; but it has only lately been brought to perfection.
The « air brush »is an appliance lately introduced into lithography, which has found much favor. The color is contained in a soft pad connected with a pneumatic tube which the artist works with his foot, governing the supply by the amount of pressure. Very little practice is required to master the new instrument, and there is said to be a great gain in speed, as well as in softness and breadth of effect.
The Printing Times devotes a long article to the subject of Day's shading and printing mediums for lithographers. These may be used for graining, stippling, lining, and otherwise shading drawings on stone, zinc, cardboard, paper, tiles, glass, or other flat surfaces. The mediums are transparent gelatine sheets which have been cast from engraved plates (or wood blocks or engraved stones), and form therefore a replica of whatever was engraved on the original in relief upon one side, while they are perfectly smooth on the other. The parts in relief can be charged with ink, and set-off upon any flat surface. When by repeated use the sheet is worn out, it can be replaced by another from the same original. This invention saves much drudgery in representing skies, clouds, stipple-work, tints, and various textures. The transfer is made with a burnisher, and the transparency of the medium enables the operator to transfer exactly so much of the tint or texture to his work as he requires. Practical men speak highly of the invention.