CALICO PRINTING. The art of pro ducing figured patterns upon cotton by colored substances. Silk and woollen fa brics have been made of late years, sub ject to a similar style of dyeing. The fab ric takes its name from Callen; a district where it has been practised for many hundred years. The art of Topical dye ing was also known to the ancient Egyp tians.
Before cloth can receive good colored impressions, it must be freed from fibrous down by singing, and be rendered smooth by the calender. They are next bleached, except those intended for Turkey-red; after being bleached, dried, singed, and calendered, they are lapped in lengths of several pieces, stitched together.
Four different modes are in iae for printing figures upon calico : the oldest is by wooden blocks, on the face of which the design is cut, which are worked by hand. The wood-blocks measure about twelve inches by seven. They have 'a smooth surface of sycamore on a substra tum of some commoner kind of wood: and the design, after being sketched on the block, is cut as in common wood-en graving, the parts being left prominent which are to constitute and print the pat tern. In some patterns, where there are fine lines, the wood would soon be worn away, or brought to a defective state by use ; and to obviate this, little slips of copper are inserted into delicate grooves cut for them, the copper slips all stand ing at an equal height, and forming the printing surface. Small pieces of felt are in some places introduced to fill up the instertiees between the coppers, so as to imprint a broader patch of color.
One block can only print one color : and, therefore, if five or six colors form the design, and all be printed by blocks, there must be five or six blocks, all equal in size, but the raised parts in each block corresponding with depressed parts in all the other blocks. The principle involved is precisely the same as that displayed in floor-cloth printing.
Another method, quite of modern in troduction, is somewhat analogous to stereotype printing. In the first place a model is formed from the design, com prising so much of it as may be included within a space of five inches long by an inch and a half wide. This model is formed of bits of metal inserted into a 141 V 11111.1 it 111011111 is produced by stamping from the model. From the mould fixed in a block, and adjusted in a convenient way, stereo type_pieces or copies are pro duced, in a mixed metal of tin, lead, and bismuth. When a number of these pieces are prepared, their surfaces are brought to a perfect level by means of a file, and they are then firmly fixed down upon a stout and carefully prepared piece of wood.
The block - printing room generally exhibits a number of machines similar to that in the cut.
The cloth wound off rol lers, passes on the surface " or the tame DO DO pruned, and, after printing, passes on to another roller, the printer regulating this move ment. Each machine is besides attended by a boy and a girl: one of these dips a brush into the color-vessel, and spreads a layer on the elastic trough. The prin
ter takes his engraved block by the han dle on its back, and presses it on the trough, the elasticity of which allows every part of the raised device on the block to take up a layer of color, and then prints a portion of the cloth equal to the size of the block. There are small pins or guide-marks on the corner of the block, by which the printer is enabled to adjust each successive impress from the block. When the whole piece has been worked over with one block, the printer goes over the same piece with a second, perhaps with a third, and so on according to the number of colors in the design, a new block being used for every color.
Another mode of printing is that by which all the colors may be laid on at once by stereotype plates. A flat piece of wood is provided two or three feet square, on which are fixed all the stereo type 'pieces ; those for one color are ranged in one row or stripe, five inches wide : those for another color form a se cond stripe, contiguous to and parallel with the first, and so on for the 3d, 4th, or 5th. The length of each stripe is equal to the breadth of the cloth, the whole forming a compound printing-block, di vided in five compartments. These blocks. are used in a printing-machine similar to type-printing : the block is fixed, face downwards, to the bottom of a descend ing frame, capable of receiving a vertical motion, and the cloth being laid on a ta ble beneath, the block is brought down at intervals upon it, by means of a lever managed by the pressman. The color is laid on the block thus : The boy has five troughs of color (or more) ranged before him; with a long piece of wood so formed as to dip in all these, and take up a small portion from each, he dabs it on a fiat felt cushion ; then with a brush be spreads these five colors in an equal number of patches over the surface of the felt, without combining or smearing one over the other. lie next slides the cushion along a kind of railway till it comes underneath the block, which i is made to descend upon it, and to imbibe a layer of color all over its surface, each one of the five rows of device falling upon one particular color on the cushion, without touching the others. The boy then draws out the cushion, and the man guides the block in its descent upon the cloth, which it imprints upon five differ ent Places in five different colors. All this is repeated a second time ; but be fore the wetted block actually descends, the cloth has been made to shift about five inches length wise, or equal to the width of one row of the block. By this means each color falls upon a part which had been printed with a different color in the former de scent. At each de scent the cloth is shifted, so that each portion of the cloth is brought into con tact with each of the five divisions of the block, and thus re ceives five different colors.