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Nature Printing (Three Different Methods)

Three Different Methods of Printing from Stone.

In the chemical printing-office at Vienna, 3 different methods are employed, but that termed in relief, is most frequently used. This is the general mode of printing music. The 2nd method is the sunk, which is preferred for prints.

Another substitute for lithographic stone is zine, which has been used to some extent lately for transfer-printing. The transfer is made on the surface from an engraving on metal or stone, and the method is nearly the same as that alluded to above.

Printing in colors is now much practised in Lithography, and quite attractive show - cards, lamp-shades, etc., are produced. Every color requires a separate design or drawing, and one color only is printed at a time. Skill and care is required in registering, as it is called, or in making the colors properly join together in the picture, and also in preparing the colors. Parts of pictures intended to be colored by hand in the usual manner, can frequently be printed more cheaply. The 3rd method is the flat, that is, neither raised nor sunk. This is useful for imitating drawings, particularly where the impression is intended to resemble crayons. For printing and engraving in this method, a block of marble is employed, or any other calcareous stone that is easily corroded, and will take a good polish. It should be 2½ inches thick, and of a size proportioned to the purpose for which it is intended. A close texture is considered as advantageous. When the stone is well polished and dry, the first step is to trace the drawing, notes, or letters to be printed with a pencil; the design is not very conspicuous, but it is rendered so by passing over the strokes of the pencil a particular ink, of which a great secret is made. This ink is made of a solution of lac in potash, colored with the soot from burning wax, and appears to be the most suitable black for the purpose. When the design has been gone over with this ink, it is left to dry about 2 hours. After it is dry, nitric acid, more or less diluted, accord-ance of becoming very important and useful in ing to the degree of relief desired, is poured on the stone, which corrodes every part of it, except when defended by the resinous ink. The block being washed with water, ink, similar to that commonly used for printing, is distributed over it by printer's balls; a sheet of paper disposed on a frame is laid on it, and this is pressed down by means of a copper roller or copper press.

The sunk or chalk method differs from that termed relief, only in having stone much more corroded by the nitric acid. In the flat method, less nitric acid is used. It is not to be supposed that the surface is quite plain in this way, but the linez are very little raised so that they can scarcely be perceived to stand above the ground, but by the finger.

To make Lithographic Pencils.

Mix the following ingredients: Soap, 3 oz.; tallow, 2 oz.; wax, 1 oz. When melted smooth, add a sufficient quantity of lampblack, and pour it into moulds.

To take Impressions on Paper from Designs made in Stone.

The stone should be close grained, and the drawing or writing should be made with a pen dipped in ink, formed of a solution of lac, in lyes of pure soda, to which some soap and lampblack should be added, for coloring. Leave it to harden for a few days; then take impressions in the following manner: Dip the surface in water, then dab it with printer's ink and printer's balls. The ink will stick to the design and not to the stone, and the impressions may be taken with wet paper, by a rolling or screw press, in the ordinary way.

Several hundred copies may be taken from the same design, in this simple manner.

Cheap Substitute for Lithographic Stone.

Paste-board, or card-paper, covered with an argillo-calcareous mixture, has been employed with complete success, and effects a great saving. The material is to be reduced to a powder, and laid on wet; it sets, of course, immediately, and may be applied to a more substantial article than paper, and upon a more extensive scale than the inventor has yet carried it on. This coating receives the ink or crayon in the same way that the stone does, and furnishes impressions precisely in the same manner.

Photographing on stone is perhaps at present the most interesting of newly discovered processes in lithography. It is very useful in making either reductions or enlargements of drawings or engravings intended to be printed from stone, and is also applicable to obtaining and fixing figures of minute objects obtained by means of the microscope. The surface of the stone is prepared in a suitable manner, and the photograph made upon it; after which it is treated and printed as in other processes of this art. This method has at present the appearlithography. Process for Printing from Veneers.

A process of veneering by transfer is mentioned with approval in the French journals. The sheet of veneer or inlaying to be copied, is to be exposed for a few minutes to the vapor of hydro-chloric acid. This novel plate is then laid upon calico or paper, and impressions struck off with a printingpress. Heat is to be applied immediately after the sheet is printed, when a perfect impression of all the marks, figures, and convuluted lines of the veneer is said to be instantaneously produced.

The process, it is affirmed, may be repeated for an almost indefinite number of times. The designs thus produced are said all to exhibit a general wood-like tint, most natural when oak, walnut, maple, and the light-colored woods have been employed.

New Tracing Paper.

Moisten a sheet of paper with benzine, by means of a sponge. The paper becomes temporarily transparent, and lines may be traced through it.

In a few hours the benzine evaporates, and the paper becomes opaque as before.

Rapid Stereotyping.

The process now adopted by many newspapers is to take a cast of the form in a composition of strong glue, with alum and plaster of Paris. Into this the metal is poured. It requires only sixteen minutes to mould, cast, and finish the stereotype plate.

Autography.

On a plate of chalk or plaster, the artist sketches the design with a gummy ink (at present a secret).

By means of a silk rag, the portions of the plate not protected by the ink are rubbed away. A copy is then obtained in fusible metal or by the electrotype.