AN APPARATUS INTENDED TO MULTIPLY A PATTERN, DESIGN AND SUCH LIKE
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Heinrich Walbrodt and Wilhelm
Wolff at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd March
1883.
HEINRICH WALBRODT and WILHELM WOLFF, of Nieder Schönweide near Cöpenick
in the Kingdom of Prussia and German Empire. AN APPARATUS INTENDED TO
MULTIPLY A PATTERN, DESIGN AND SUCH LIKE
It is a well known fact that of the patterns of woollen, silk, cotton materials,
wall papers and similar articles, only 1, 2 or at most 3 or 4 copies are produced by
the pattern makers.
But in order to judge the effect of any given pattern it is necessary to see it
repeated from between 8 to 20 times; for if the pattern is seen on so great a
number of repetitions, faults often appear which escape notice, if it is repeated but
twice or even four times.
Not seldom a printed material or wall paper shows strongly marked lines, so
called "stripes, which produce a very unpleasant effect, which the pattern maker
did not anticipate and which did not exist or were not apparent in the design of
the single pattern. It is evident of how great a value an apparatus must be
which multiplies a pattern at pleasure, representing a number of repetitions joining
each other closely.
This problem is solved by the apparatus described in the following specification
Through a mirror placed on a suitable support the daylight is thrown full on
the pattern placed on a suitable support.
By properly placing five other mirrors the design is 5 times repeated, it is then
an easy matter to contrive that those 5 reflected pictures appear without intervals
in close contiguity; or in other words the result of this reflection is the production
of a 5 times repeated picture, which, in one that is in the horizontal direction
would appear exactly as the pattern would come out on the material, if it were
printed on the same.
These mirrors stand in the surface of a hollow cylinder, the axis of which lies
in the ideal centre of the pattern or design, and in order to give them the correct
position necessary each of them is fastened in a suitable support so that it can be
moved at pleasure on the surface of the table and can be turned in the vertical
plane by two adjusting screws.

page_text: Lastly there are three more mirrors each of which reflects the entire picture of
the 5 mirrors.
Of these three mirrors the lowest is fixed with its support to the surface of the
table. The second, which is above the former, is movable in its support by means
of an enclosing box, and of its elongations as well as by an adjusting screw and
can be turned in its vertical plane by means of suitable adjusting screws and a
spring that lies behind. Finally the entire support can be so moved by means of
three or more adjusting screws, that the lower edge of the mirror laps over the
first mirror as far as is necessary.
The third mirror is held in its support exactly as the second and the same
movements can be made with this as with the former.
Now, as each of these three last named mirrors gives the entire picture of the
5 mirrors, that is to say it reflects the five times repeated drawing or design in
close contiguity, it is evident that in the total picture of the three mirrors, we
obtain 15 repetitions of the design five times in the horizontal and three times in
the vertical direction; and here too.it is possible to bring about by means of the
aforesaid arrangements in regard to the second and third mirrors that all the
15 pictures join each other closely and produce exactly the same effect, as if we
saw a material printed with the pattern represented in drawing or design.
We may add that as results from this description, the number of pictures finally
produced is obtained in the product of the number of mirrors employed. So that
if we for instance use 7 mirrors and 5 mirrors we shall obtain 35 repetitions etc.