Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 1

[trade dispatches]

The American Lithographer and Printer states that lithographic printing from zinc, heretofore attended with difficulties, and inferior to the work produced from stone, has now been brought to sudden perfection. A full account of the new method is promised.

A substitute for wood type or printing blocks is now made from paper pulp. The pulp is desiccated, and reduced to a powdered comminuted state, after which it is thoroughly mixed with a waterproofing liquid or material—such as paraffin oil or a drying linseed oil, for instance. The mixture is then dried and subsequently pulverized. In its pulverized state it is introduced into a mould of the requisite construction to produce the desired article, type or block, and then subjected to pressure to consolidate it, and heat to render tacky or adhesive the waterproofing material. Finally, the type is cooled while in the mould, so as to cause it to retain its shape and solidity.

The « Albatype » is the name of a new and economical method of making large letters for posters. A combination fount of blocks is supplied in 1-inch, 2-inch, 4-inch, and 8-inch squares, cut to various straight, oblique and curved shapes. A chart accompanies the fount, illustrating the manner in which they are to be put together. Plain and ornamental letters can be thus constructed, either solid or open on a solid ground. There is nothing quite new under the sun. Twenty-five or thirty years ago Figgins showed two series of ornamental « Initial Fragments » on emerald bodies, on much the same plan. They have long ago vanished from his specimen-book. The Central Type Foundry of St Louis, has also a set of « letter combinations » on long primer and pica bodies, by which very good letters of various sizes may be built up.

Mr. Ladewig (says L'Industrie Modeme) has devised a process of manufacturing from asbestos fibre a pulp and a paper that resists the action of fire and water, that absorbs no moisture, and the former of which (the pulp) may be used as a stuffing and for the joints of engines. The process of manufacture consists in mixing about 25 per cent. of asbestos fibre with from 25 to 35 per cent. of powdered sulphate of alumina. The mixture is moistened with an aqueous solution of chloride of zinc, washed with water, and then treated with a solution composed of 1 part of resin soap and 8 or 10 parts of water mixed with an equal bulk of sulphate of alumina, which should be as pure as possible. The mixture thus obtained should have a slightly pulpy consistency. Finally, there is added to it 35 per cent. of powdered asbestos and 5 to 8 per cent. of white barytes. This pulp is treated with water in an ordinary paper machine and worked just like paper pulp. In order to manufacture from it a solid cardboard, proof against fire and water, and capable of serving as a roofing material for light structures, sheets of common cardboard, tarred or otherwise prepared, are covered with the pulp. The application is made in a paper machine, the pulp being allowed to flow over the cardboard.