Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1881-02-09
How one.oth carpet. ar. Made.

There is large.oilcloth mandatory
in Salem, New Jersey. All the buriap
on and of which oilcloth Is made, is
manufactured In Dundee, Scotland. II
Is made from an India grass. Ii Is
sized first, when it lsfeady tor paint
ing, It'll not painted with brushes,
but with knife, great leng knife.
The end of the burlaps is passed under
the blade. When paint is ladled on the
burlaps by the gallon, machinery takes
hold OF 1t and draws it between roller
and the knife, and the blade scrapes on
all the superauous paint as 1t passes
through. No brush could lay the color
on so evenly. They paint sixty yards
of burlaps in a minute. Then when il
is dry, it is sand-papered By machinery
and other coats of paint go on, From
four to nine coats of paint are nut on,
according to the quality Of the oilcloth.
Ii dries in a week, when it is ready for
printing. This is the most interesting
process. All the blocks from which
oilcloth is printed in these, and with
few exceptions, all the manufactures
in the United States, are made in Hal
lowell, Maine.
The block is about eighteen inches
square, and is made of three pieces;
the inside block is pine, and the out
side blocks are maple. The printing
surface is sawed across at right angles
with very fine saws, which work au-
tomatically, and don't need any super
intendence after they have been started.
When it reaches :he factory, the sur
face of the block looks like a box of
matches; the designer then paints his
design on paper, lined out in tiny
squares, q perfect duplicate of the
block. In copying the design on the
block, the operator works one block
for each color, and the copying is done
with chisel. the operator cutting
away ali the little squares made by the
saw, except those covered by the pat
ten. Ii is like worsted work, ''fOur
squares 10 the right, three staaight up,
five to the right, three down and four
10 the left.' The same old ''three
greens and then a brown" business.
The designer is limited to few cclors,
and has to make the most OF his COM
binations. These blocks are then fitted
with handles, and the printers go to
work. The palette is a great revolving
table with pads of the different paints
laid on il. Two men work at each
table, and the operation of printing is
like stamping letters at the mailing
table in the post office. The printer
slaps the block on the pad, and then
strikes it on the oilcloth-first the
white, say, and there is scattering
meaningless, pict ure Of little white
squares; then the red is struck on,
more little white dots that look like
nothing; then the green, and you
think you can see something like a
leaf; then another shade, and another,
until you see a cluster of leaves and
birds in a figure outlined by very
distinct color, and the printing is ready
for the''masher, " which is a block just
like the others, only all the squares
left on, not one struck out. This IS
pressed down on the figures by hand
pressed down evenly and smoothly.
If the printer wants to give a square
"pegged" appearance TO the finish Of
the oilcloth, the masher is sawed both
ways in the bunch oil matches style. Ii
he wants TO Line" the finish, the
masher ne uses has only been sawed
one way, and the oilcloth has ''lined"
appearance on the surface. This work
is all done by hand, guided only by
gauges, but so perfectly is il done that
the figures never lap and you will
have hard work finding where the
blocks join on your oilcloth. They
print each day, at each table l20 yards
of OilclOth. Then the cloth goes into
the ''ice house, to dry. The ice house
is frozen by steam. Superintendent
Dunn very kindly told me TO put on
my overcoat before l went in. put 1t
on, and when | got in there the ther-
mOmeter marked I75 degrees above,
and still a-going. L took off my over
coat. The cloth is then ready to var
nish. This is done with brushes, four
teen brushes, which a man works with
a crank. Here in these works they
yarnish II 600 yards week.