Daily Kennebec journal., 1884-12-29
mIsffIlaneaa5
Making Wall Paper.
How III Is PRINTED IN so MANY CoNPLI-
GATED PATTERNS.

/ NA1ED
A reporter recently paid visit to a
large wall paper factory, beginning his
tour of investigation In the basement,
where 25 men were found mixing the
colors in barrels. All were water colors.
and all were also claimed as harmless by
the superintendent. All tints were repre-
sented in them. the most Lively colors be-
ing the favorites. as warm, lively colors
will be the fashionable thing in wall pa
pers this fall An idea of the extent of
this color mixing business may be guessed
when it is known that the establishment
uses nearly 10 tons of paint day.
THE PROCESS OF BLoTCHING.
The ..blotching machines on the fourth
floor of the building are the ones which
first treat the paper which is going TO be
converted into the much ornamented arti-
Gle seen on the walls of so many town
h, uses A web OF black paper is set in a
reel behind one of these machines. The
free end of the paper on the web is pulled
| forward and placed betweenttwo cylinders
which drag it into the machine, where a
roller. part of which is working in a
.'color pan" filed with thin paints work
ing. This roller puts large quantity of
color upon the paper and set of fiat
brushes, say halt dozen in number. call
ed jiggers, work rapidly back and for
ward at right angles with the course OF
the paper. working this coloring matter
in and spreading it evenly over the sur
face of the paper, so that when the cylin-
ders of the rear end OF the machine drag
it out it is thoroughly painted in water
color on one side.
! As it issues from the blotching machine
a workman takes the free end of the pa
per and wraps it around stick, which is
carried up an incline by two parallel end
| less chains. After eighteen feet of the
paper have run out on these chains, pick
up another stick which lies across them
and bears paper upon it. This last stick
ehases the first one up and gains on it till
only foot behind, when it stops gaining,
and both travel along maintaining that
relative distance. with the paper between
them looped down till it nearly touches
the floor, yet not in danger of being
| squeezed together so that the paint on it
Shall touch any other than it is intended
| for. A hundred other sticks do precisely
as the second one did. and the result is
that there are soon a hundred loops of pa
per, each loop containing eighteen feet.
The elevated railway OF parallel chains
on which the sticks from which the paper
is looped are travelling, turns corners of
the building at will, and soon the blotch-
ing machine has run the whole web out,
and it is hanging in loops over a system
OF steam pipes. which dry it so fast as il
moves along, that it is perfectly dry before
it reaches the further end of the chain
railway, where boy with a reel winds it
back into web form again.
In THE DESIGNING Room.
The designs are first sketched out on
paper and then transferred bv an ordinary
process on the faces of rollers made to
suit the size required--an eighteen-inch
design, for instance, requiring roller six
inches in diameter. Nav be the design
requires printing in twelve colors (that is
the highest number ordinarily run J to do
this twelve rollers would be prepared,
each having the design upon it, and each
of a size exactly equal to that of the 9th
ers. When the rollers are all prepared
the artist will direct skilled workmen,
who are with him, to fix up one to take
the brown, another red, another yellow.
and so on with all the other colors Let
the brown color serve as an example for
all.
The workman takes it to his bench.
where there is wise and hammers and
piles OF brass made into thick ribbons
| and reds. Here he sets the roller in the
grasp and goes to work on it.
Every bit of the design which is to be in
brown is traced out tor him and he repro
duces it In relief on the roller with his
bronze wires and rods and ribbons. which
he drives into the hard wood so solidly
that they stick there as il they had grown.
The brass wire can be given any ordinary
shape necessary by drawing it by machln-
cry through hole ot corresponding shape
in a steel bar. This is the way that the
roller, which will print in brown. is first
| fitted up. When it is finished it bears on
| its face, in raised brass, fragments of
leaves and parts of birds and ears of
wheat and little and apparently unneces-
sary and unshaped points of metal, all of
which at the proper place and time will
put the brown coloring and shading in ex-
actly the place where the designer wants
it to go.
THE RAPIDLY WORKING PRESS.
| When the roller has had all its share Of
the design hammered into it it is taken
| away W d iui hlti2 lstlut, WHtU Jub lace Oh
all the brass work is struck on one side
by pumice stone and on the other lby
file and gradually brought down to per-
feet smoothness and evenness and the ex-
act size needed. All the other rollers are
treated in the same way indicated, each
getting its share of the design hammered
into its face in brass work and each after
ward being reduced to smoothness and the
proper size by the file and pumce stone.
1t sometimes cost $1,000, to get up set OF
rollers in this fashion. and they maybe.
take three or four weeks in preparation.
When the rollers are prepared they are
taken to press which consists of a very
large cylinder of the width of ordinary
wall paper. Around the bottom and sides
of this cylinder are grooves into which the
rods on the ends OF the rollers fit. the
faces of the rollers just touching the cylin-
der when they are in position. To each
OF the rollers comes from below it an end
less cloth band. which works upward from
a color pan in which the coloring matter
to be used on the particular parts of the
design carried on the roller in ouestion i