IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF BLOCKS OR SURFACES FOR SURFACE PRINTING, STAMPING, EMBOSSING, AND MOULDING
Year: 1844

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, THOMAB
BROWN JORDAN, of Cottage Road, Pimlico, in the County of Middlesex,
Mathematical Divider, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster,
the Second day of November, in the eighth year of Her reign, did give
and grant unto me, the said Thomas Brown Jordan, my exors, admors, and
assigns, Her especial license, full power, sole privilege and authority, that
I, the said Thomas Brown Jordan, my exors, admors, and assigns, and
every of them, by myself and themselves, or by my and their deputy or
deputies, servants or agents, or such others as I, the said Thomas Brown
Jordan, my exors, admors, or assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term of years
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within that part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called
England, the Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in such
manner as to me, the said Thomas Brown Jordan, my exors, admors, and
assigns, or any of them, shall in my or their discretion seem meet, my Inven-
tion of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF BLOCKS OR SURFACES FOR SURFACE
PRINTING, STAMPING, EMBOSSING, AND MOULDING;" in which said Letters Patent
there is contained a proviso that I, the said Thomas Brown Jordan, shall
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing under
my hand and seal, and cause the same instrument to be enrolled in Her said

page_text: Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as,
reference being thereto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Thomas Brown Jordan, do hereby declare the nature of my said Invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following statement, and the Drawings therein
referred to, and to these Presents annexed:-
The manufacturing arts dependent on or requiring the use of blocks or
surfaces for surface printing, stamping, embossing, and moulding, are very
numerous, and among those which are in some degree dependent on surface
printing, the most important are calico printing, (which term also includes the
printing on silk, woollen, and other fabrics), paper staining, and floorcloth
printing; and from these spring a number of minor branches, as, for instance,
the printing of diagrams and illustrations on paper, the whole of which arts
require carefully executed blocks of wood or other material for laying on the
different colours of the design. The blocks for this purpose are now commonly
prepared by hand, either by cutting in wood or metal, or by driving variously
formed pieces of metal into a wooden block, so as to make up the design from
which the work is to be printed, or by driving pieces of metal into the end
grain of a soft wood, such as lime tree, to form the pattern, and then pulling
them out again, and using the piece of wood with the impressions in it as a
mould for casting metal types in, which being obtained in sufficient number,
are nailed on to a wooden block for printing from. It is obvious that this
last-mentioned method is only applicable when the pattern is repeated several
times in the size of the block, because the cost of making a mould in this
way the whole size of the block would in most cases exceed that of the
cutting the same block in wood; but as this repetition of pattern in the
same block is of constant occurrence, this latter method was an important
addition to those previously used. The arts of stamping and embossing, though
much more limited in extent than those dependant on surface printing, also
require blo. ks upon which patterns and designs are carefully cut, so as to
leave a sunk or raised pattern or design, as in bookbinding, and in orna-
menting papers, cardboard, and woven or others fabrics, by subjecting them
to the pressure of such blocks. The art of moulding or producing patterns
in blocks from which sand would be moulded previous to making a casting of
the required pattern, is of extensive application in the arts, and for this
purpose carefully executed blocks are of great importance. Blocks so pre-
pared may also be employed as a mould, into which metal type may be cast

page_text: and used for surface printing. The manufacture of blocks for these various
purposes of surface printing, stamping, embossing, and moulding, has hitherto
been carried on principally by the process of cutting by hand, engraving, and
stereotyping. Now, my Invention has for its object the superseding these im-
perfect and expensive means by the adaptation and application of certain me-
chanical arrangements to the manufacture of the surfaces of such blocks. I do
not consider it requisite to detail the various applications of this Invention, which
may be used in every case where an engraved block or surface for printing,
stamping, embossing, or moulding is required; and such blocks or surfaces
may be of any material applicable to these purposes, and capable of being cut
by steel tools.
I will now proceed to describe in what manner I carry my said Invention
into practice. The mechanical arrangements for this purpose are shewn in
the annexed Drawings, in which the same letters of reference denote the same
parts in all the Figures.
Figure 1 is a plan; Figure 2, front elevation; and Figure 3, a side eleva-
tion. A, B, C, D; is the stand or foundation of the machine, to which is
firmly fixed an iron bed, the two sides of which E, E, F, F, form a railway
for the grooved wheels G, H, I, K, to run on. These wheels run between
centres attached to the frame L, M, N, O, all of which have screw adjust-
ments for placing them properly and setting them in a plane parralell to tlie
surface of the rails. The sides L, M, and N, O, of this frame are planed
strictly parrallel and level, and they serve as rails for the groovedl wheels
P, Q, R, S, which are mounted on the frame T, U, V, W, in the same way
as the former.. This frame forms the moving table or support for the work
to be engraved, which may be fixed to it by the clamps a, a, b, b, c, c.
When required, a chuck may be interposed between the table and the
work, having a rotatory motion on its centre, so that the work may be
fixed in different angular positions by a catch or detent, as commonly
applied in such cases. The disposition of the work as above described givés
the operator the power of moving it freely in any and every direction in
an horizontal plane, for a due combination of these two right-lined motions
will produce a circle, and consequently every other variety of line may be
obtained from them; but as this is done without any angular motion of the
moving parts, it follows that any right line drawn on it will in every position
of the work be parallel to itself in every other position, and consequently, that
every point in the moving frame must describe exactly similar figures;
whence, also, it follows that the figure of the design may be traced with a
point attached to the moving table at any distance from the tool or cutter.

page_text: Z is the tracing point, which is fixed to a mandril having a perpendicular
sliding motion in the headstock 3, which can be clamped by the screw z.
1, m, n, o, is a face plate screwed to the. axis or bolt p, made strictly parallel
to the plane in which the work moves; to this face plate is fixed the guide
for the tracing point, which may be a drawing or slightly raised outline of the
whole design, or a series of templets suited to the elementary portions of it,
as will be further explained. The cutting apparatus is supported over the
table by the standards 5, 6, and the horizontal support 7; 8 is a simple bar
to which the cutting frame is firmly attached. The tool holder is a revolving
mandril or drill stock r, s, mounted on a vertical slide, which may be raised or
depressed by the workman's foot, by means of the treadle t, the connection of
which with the lever u, v, and the vertical slide is fully shewn in the Drawings.
x is an adjusting stop screw for regulating the depth of the cut; and for this
purpose there is also a set of steel guages, one of which w, is shewn in its
place on pin y. The mandril r, s, carries the cutter s, and is driven by any
first mover through the medium of the band at a rate of several thousand
revolutions per minute. The cutters or drills are variously formed, and many
different sizes are required. Some of the forms are shewn in Figures
10, 11, 12; but I do not confine myself to these forms, because it is often
requisite to adapt the cutter to the work in hand, which is what every prac-
tical mechanic is in the habit of doing with all sorts of cutting tools; and in
this particular, whatever instruction may be given, every workman may
eventually follow his own plans, and suit his own convenience.
Having described all the essential parts of the machinery, I shall now
explain different methods of using it to produce printing blocks.
The first and most simple method is to paste or otherwise attach firmly a
drawing of the required pattern on a board which is fixed to the face plate
l, m, n, o, and to fix a block of the requisite size on the moving table
T, U, V, W; then having chosen a proper cutter and a tracing point of equal
size, place the steel guage w for regulating the depth of cut in its seat, and
by the screw a being the point of the cutter just to touch the surface of the
block. This done, it may be raised by the treadle and thrown in gear with
the first mover.
The steel guage must now be thrown back, as shewn by
the dotted line w¹ in Figure 2, and the cutter, when at full speed, let down
gradually on the block; the tracer is at the same time caused to pass slowly
and steadily over the lines of the drawing by the hand of the workman.
It will be obvious, from the previous description of the machine, that
whatever be the course of the tracer, a similarly formed path or groove will
be cut in the block, whose depth is equal to the thickness of the guage, and

page_text: width equal to the diameter of the drill. This method is applicable to a large.
class of blocks in which sunk lines are required and perfect symmetry not
essential; but where large surfaces are to be removed and smaller ones or
mere lines allowed to stand in relief as the printing portions of the block,
then other modes are more convenient, inasmuch as the hand cannot carry
the tracing point so steadily across or over a drawing as by following or
conducting it against an edge or outline. And I may remark, that in cutting
delicate patterns or fine lines in which perfect uniformity, symmetry, and
regularity are essential, the tracing point must be moved with the same
symmetry and regularity, and with great steadiness, inasmuch as the cutting
point repeats the motion of the tracer with the greatest accuracy.
The
methods of furnishing such guide for the tracing point are numerous; as, for
instance, all the known methods for producing mathematical drawings, for,
whatever instrument or guide is competent to govern the path of a drawing
pencil, is also competent to govern the path of the tracer in this machine, and
therefore every method of drawing mathematical figures may, by application
to it, be made to cut the same figures of any required depth and thickness. The
application of straightedges and parallel rulers is too obvious to require more
than a passing notice; and closely allied to these are rulers whose edges are cut
to any curvature, which I shall call templets. These are very quickly and
conveniently made on the machine by fixing a piece of thin veneer of wood,
or a thin plate of metal, on the moving table, and adjusting the cutter so as to
pierce it right through while the required lines of the drawing are traced, as
in other cases; any slight irregularities of form may be corrected with a file
afterwards, and it will then serve to produce any number of similar curves
(either right or left), each as perfect as the original, with a speed little short
of that at which they can be drawn on paper. In using such templets I
furnish them with two fine and short steel points, to prevent their slipping,
or they may be fixed to the table by drawing pins; they are placed to coincide
with the corresponding line of the drawing on the pannel, and thus serve as
a steady guide for the tracing point. Whenever a pattern is composed of a
few simple curves, often repeated (right and left), this is one of the best and
most simple modes of obtaining it; but if the forms are numerous and the
arrangements complex, then it is better to use a raised outline of the whole
design (of course if there is any repetition of this in the size of the block it
is only requisite to have one pattern), which may be obtained in many different
That which I find best for continuous lines of equal thickness is to
fix the drawing on the board as before, and a block of hard wood (end grain)
on the moving table, then with a fine cutter making a cut of about the
ways.

page_text: fiftieth part of an inch deep, and a corresponding tracing point travel very
steadily and carefully over every line of the drawing, using templets and rulers
whenever admissable. By this means a fine sunk outline is made, which
serves as a mould for casting fusible metal in; and the raised outline thus
obtained forms a perfect guide for the tracing point. In some cases, as for
instance in groups of flowers, it is better that the sunk outline should be cut
by hand, which can be done very rapidly, as the depth need not be greater
than stout paper. In forming these templets it is by no means requisite that
the lines of them should be of the same thickness which is required in the
finished work, because the thickness of the lines on the finished block may be
determined by the relative size of the tracer and cutter. For instance, let it
be required to produce the figure a in the margin of plan from the guide b;
it can be done by using a tracer of the size of b', and a cutter the size of a',
for as the tracer is a point in the moving surface which the cutter (a fixed
point) is employed to engrave, their centres must pass over similar paths, as
shewn by the dotted lines; but as the diameters are different, the thickness
will be equally different, as is obvious from inspection of the Figure, which
also shews that a fine line may be produced from a thick guide by using a cutter
larger than the tracing point. This simple mode of varying the thickness of
the line is of the greatest importance in practice. Templets, which by tasteful
combinations produce very beautiful varieties of pattern, may be made by
taking casts from moulds formed in the lathe with the geometric eccentric
or oval chucks, and by the rose engine; and other ornamental turning appa-
ratus or portions of such apparatus may be fixed to the spill p, and the tracing
point placed in a socket on the face of these chucks, made adjustable for this
purpose by means which will readily occur to any competent workmen; then
by turning the chuck on its axis the working table of the machine will
traverse over the curves and figures for which the chuck had previously been
adjusted. In this way guides may easily be obtained for cutting any combina-
tion of circles, ovals, epicycloids &c., &c., with mathematical precision.
The pentagraph is another instrument which may be similarly applied for
cutting reduced copies of any original design, whether on paper or from
templets. I do not think it necessary more particularly to describe these
pieces of apparatus or their application to my machine, because I make no
claim to them, and their application to these purposes will be sufficiently
evident to those who are practically acquainted with them. In like manner
and other known means of producing curved figures by instrumental arrange-
ments may be similarly applied, my Invention in respect of such well-known
apparatus and instruments being confined to rendering them practically useful

page_text: in connection with the arrangements herein-before described for obtaining
patterns and designs to be cut on blocks applicable to above-mentioned
purpose. In executing lined patterns, such as plaids and stripes, I place stop
screws similar to A', fixed by their clamps to any parts of the rails, on which
they are shewn in the Drawing, and by bringing them near enough, either
the lower or upper rolling frame may be fixed. If we fix the lower one the
upper one carrying the block will only be at liberty to move in one direction,
and therefore only a straight line parallel to the sides of the lower frame can
be cut; a fresh adjustment of the stop screws admits of a second line being
cut parallel to the first, and so on. If the upper frame is fixed and the lower
allowed to move, lines may be cut in the same manner, which will be at right
angles to the others, and either set may be stopped at any required length by
the requisite adjustment of the screws.
Having now described the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, I wish it to be understood that I do not claim
as of my Invention or the exclusive use of the several parts of the machinery
and apparatus herein-before described and referred to, except when such parts
are or may be applied in and for the manufacture of blocks or surfaces, as
herein described; but what I claim as my Invention is, the manufacture of
blocks or surfaces for surface printing, stamping, embossing, and moulding,
by the use and application of the mechanical arrangements and apparatus
herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Thomas Brown Jordan, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-eighth day of April, in the year
of our Lord One thousand sight hundead and forty five
THOMAS BROWN (L.S.) JORDAN.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-eighth day of April,
in the year of our Lord 1845, the aforesaid Thomas Brown Jordan came
before our said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the
Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified,
in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped
according to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.