An Improved Method of Transferring Woodbury-type Prints.
Year: 1891

page_text: Date of Application, 6th Feb., 1891
Complete Specification Left, 31st July, 1891-Accepted, 5th Sept., 1891
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
An Improved Method of Transferring Woodbury-type Prints.
WILLIAM GEORGE BURROWS Henrietta Villa Boston Road Hanwell
Middlesex Woodbury-type Printer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention
to be as follows:-
My invention consists in an improved method of transferring Woodbury-type
prints from the paper on which they are printed to paper, card, glass, wood or other
materials usually employed for illustrations or designs, by the use of Woodbury-type
printing-paper so prepared that it can be easily detached from the print itself without
the aid of a solvent. To effect this I prepare the paper by coating or impregnating it
with wax parafine, spermacetti, stearine or other analogous substances either
separately or in combination and either in a melted condition in the manner well
known in photography for making waxed paper or by treating the paper with
solutions of the same; after which I apply the usual preparations used in the
manufacture of paper for Woodbury-type printing and which are well known in the
trade.
The prints when dry are cut to the required size and mounted face downwards;
when the dampness caused by mounting has evaporated the paper on which the
prints were made may be readily stripped off leaving the prints transferred.
Dated this Fifth day of January 1891.
WILLIAM GEORGE BURROWS.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
An Improved Method of Transferring Woodbury-type Prints.
I, WILLIAM GEORGE BURROWS, of Henrietta Villa, Boston Road, Hanwell,
Middlesex Woodbury-type Printer do hereby declare the nature of this invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement :-
This invention relates to the method of Woodbury-type printing by transfer
wherein the print produced in the first instance upon a temporary support is trans-
ferred thence directly to a final support upon which the print is thus produced
without the intervention of a permanent intermediate support between the print and
its mount, as usual in the ordinary process of Woodbury-type printing; and the
invention consists in an improvement whereby the operation of thus transferring
the Woodbury-type print from the temporary, to the final, support is rendered
possible without the use of any solvent for the waterproof coating of the temporary
support, the use of such a solvent having hitherto always been necessary in this
particular process in order to enable the print to be detached from its temporary
support. By my improvement, the operation of transferring is greatly facilitated
and the production of a clean print with white margin directly upon the final
support is rendered easy.
This is accomplished by the employment as the temporary support of paper
prepared by coating with wax paraffin, spermaceti, stearine, or other analogous
fatty matter either separately or in combination applied to the paper as hereafter
described before it is waterproofed by coating with the shellac preparation usually
employed to form the ground on which to print from the Woodbury-type block.
The wax or other fatty matter thus intervenes between the shellac coating and the
paper and by closing the pores of the latter prevents the shellac from adhering so
strongly as to necessitate the use of a solvent for the shellac to enable the print to
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page_text: be detached from the temporary support in the operation of transferring to the final
support.
The paper employed for the temporary support must be of a fine uniform quality
such at Rive or Saxe paper of the kind used for photographic purposes. It is
prepared by coating it with a solution of the fatty matter the material it is preferred
to employ being beeswax dissolved in naphtha in the proportion of one ounce of
wax to 80 ounces of naphtha. These proportions are found to answer best. in
practice and the same solvent may be used for any other of the fatty matters
named but for stearine and spermaceti I prefer benzene or turpentine. As the
paper requires to receive a merely superficial coating of the wax, the solution should
be applied uniformly lightly and rapidly, preferably by means of a flannel pad.
When dry, the prepared surface of the paper then receives a coating of shellac
dissolved in water, after which it is to be rolled between polished steel plates.
Upon the paper thus prepared as a temporary support, the print is produced
from the Woodbury-type block in the manner usually practised and the print having
been dried on this temporary support the operation of transferring the print to its
final support is as follows:
The print is to be thoroughly washed with naphtha or benzene (to get rid of
any deposit of grease from the mould which was oiled as usual) and the print
and temporary support having been trimmed to the required size the print is to be
applied face downwards upon the final support to which a weak mounting solution
has previously been applied. The print and support are then allowed to remain a
few minutes under pressure and then dried, after which the temporary support on
which the print was originally printed can be easily stripped off, leaving the print
transferred and firmly adherent to the final support of whatever material (e.g. paper
silk glass or wood) it may be composed. In thus stripping off the temporary
support the latter is detached from the shellac ground which accompanies the print.
The shellac ground thus remains superposed upon the print to which it imparts a
matt effect and as no solvent for the shellac has been used the result is a perfectly
clean print with a matt surface and white margin. The prints being thus produced
direct upon their final support are eminently suited for book illustrations.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is:
1. The herein described improvement in Woodbury-type transfer printing, which
consists in coating the paper used as the intermediate support first with wax or
other fatty matter specified and then with the usual waterproof preparation,
substantially as and for the purpose specified.
2. The herein described improvement in Woodbury-type transfer printing, which
consists in coating the paper used as the intermediate support with wax or other
fatty matter specified applied in the form of a solution in the manner described
before the usual waterproof preparation is applied, substantially as and for the
purpose specified.
Dated this 31st day of July 1891.
WILLIAM GEORGE BURROWS.
By A. M. & Wm. Clark,
53, Chancery Lane, London, Patent Agents.