IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR PRINTING WOVEN AND OTHER FABRICS
Year: 1853

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Isaac Taylor, of Stanford Rivers, in the County
of Essex, Gentleman, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
MACHINERY FOR PRINTING WOVEN AND OTHER FABRICS."
Sealed the 17th May 1853, and dated the 21st March 1853.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Isaac Taylor at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 21st March 1853.
I, ISAAC TAYLOR, of Stanford Rivers, in the County of Essex,
Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR PRINTING WOVEN AND OTHER FABRICS !!
to be as follows:-
My improvements in printing machinery are, amongst other advan-
tages, intended to facilitate the use of thin shell rollers, which, though
they have frequently been proposed in place of the ponderous rollers
at present generally employed, have not hitherto been successfully or
ordinarily introduced.
The thin shells which I employ as best adapted to my machinė
instead of being conical interiorly so as to be driven up tight upon the
Price 8d.]

page_text: mandril used for printing, are cylindrical within as well as on their
exterior surface, and are without nib or key, and are of no greater
thickness than is required for the purpose of engraving.
A thin shell of copper or other metal, such as is above described, I
pass on to a cylindrical mandril of such size as that the shell fits truly
but easily upon it, and not so as to take a fixed position upon it
circumferentially.
This mandril thus carrying the engraved thin shell upon it forms
one of three cylinders, which are lodged in a line as to their several
axes between two jambs, these jambs being inclined. towards each
other at an angle more or less acute as may be required by the nature
of the work to be done by the machine.
The exterior of these three cylinders being the engraved roller, the
middle cylinder acts as the boll, and the exterior cylinder, on the other
hand, is a support roller bearing upon the boll.
These three cylinders being always, as above said, in line as to
their axes, that line is inclined more or less to the horizontal diameter
of the boll.
The boll rests by its spindles in a fixed position, while the support
roller is capable of an adjustment, bringing it higher or lower upon the
jamb which sustains it, so as to be brought in all cases into a position
of rectilinear opposition to the axis of the engraved roller.
The mandril, with the engraved shell upon it, works by its spindles
in a carriage, which carriage moves at ease, yet with a correct fit, in
grooves upon the inclined jamb; this jamb or the sliding carriage is
brought within such a distance of the axis of the boll as to impinge
upon it some little way more or less above the line of the horizontal
diameter of the boll, and therefore giving it a tendency always to bring
the two cylinders into a tight pressure, the one upon the other.
The carriage of the engraved roller and mandril has, moreover, a
shelf attached to it, upon which additional weight may be placed when
the nature of the work requires more pressure.
The three cylinders being thus disposed, I apply the motive power
from the engine, not as in the ordinary machine to the spindle of the
engraved roller, to do which requires an absolute fixture of the shell

page_text: upon the mandril, but to the axis of the middle cylinder or boll. This
may be done either immediately by a toothed gearing, or by means of
an intermediate wheel, or by a driving band passing over a drum. But
the precise mode of conveying rotatory motion to the boll is not essential
to my Invention.
The machine, as above described, that is to say, as adapted to the
printing in a single colour, must of course become proportionately more
complicated when it is adapted to printing in two, three, or more
colors, but still the same principles as here stated are adhered to.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Isaac Taylor, in the Great Seal Patent Office, on the
21st September 1853.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ISAAC
TAYLOR, of Stanford Rivers, in the County of Essex, Gentleman, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-first day of March, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, in the
sixteenth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Isaac Taylor, Her special licence that
I, the said Isaac Taylor, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or
such others as I, the said Isaac Taylor, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time
to time and at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands,
and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY FOR
PRINTING WOVEN AND OTHER FABRICS," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Isaac Taylor, by an instrument in writing under
my hand and seal, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be per-
formed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of
the said Letters Patent.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that
the said Isaac Taylor, do hereby declaré
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and
by the following statement thereof (that is to say):
The printing machine which I claim as my Invention is adapted as
well to facilitate the use of thin shell rollers in place of the ponderous
rollers at present generally employed as to obviate the many serious
inconveniences, and to exclude the mischances that attach to the
working of the printing machines at present in use.
As to the first of the above-mentioned purposes, namely, that of facili-
tating the use of thin shell rollers, it is proper to state that while the
printing machine of my Invention admits of the use of the very thinnest
crust of copper or other metal upon which engravings can be effected,
it is not less well adapted than any other printing machines to the use
of the thick shell rollers which are now generally employed.
Hitherto, when shells comparatively thin have been employed in the
calico and other analagous kinds of printing, little success has attended
the endeavour to effect this change, though so desirable in itself,
because as in these printing machines motion is conveyed to the
mandril which carries the engraved roller, and which roller drives the
boll, and also draws with it the piece and the blanketting, it is necessary
to fix the copper shell very firmly upon its mandril so as to prevent its
travelling or slipping. To effect this purpose the shell itself is made
conical interiorily, and it is furnished with a nib or key, all which
precautions demand a thickness and weight of metal much exceeding
what is required in shells adapted to my machine. But if to avoid the
difficulties that are to be encountered when a thin shell is to be
secured upon a printing mandril it be made immoveably fast upon it,
then the great inconvenience and cost involved in keeping a store of
such mandrils are incurred, and thus the commercial advantage of
using such shells is foregone.
Thin shells specially adapted to be used with my machine are cylin-
drical in their interior as well as their exterior surface; they are also
made without nib, key, or joint, and they are of no greater thickness
than is required for the purpose of engraving, and need not exceed
one twentieth of an inch. A thin shell as thus described, and when it

page_text: has been engraved in the ordinary modes, I pass on to a cylindrical
mandril, or a shell of such size and structure as to fit it truly, but yet
easily, and so that it may readily be put on and again removed without
application of any considerable force. This engraved shell need not,
therefore, be made to maintain an immoveable position circumferentially
upon its mandril or upon its shell, for as the motion from the engine is
conveyed in my machine to the axis of the boll, and not to the spindle
of the engraved roller, this crust of copper is exempt from strain, and it
preserves its relation to the piece and to the boll by its frictional contact
in much the same way as in an ordinary copper-plate printing press; the
position of the plate upon the slab, and of the paper upon the plate, is
preserved by no other means than that of the nip between the slab and
the boll as it revolves. So long as two cylindrical bodies are absolutely
true in themselves, and are placed parallel to each other, this perfect re-
lationship of an intervening body cannot fail to be maintained; but if
they, or either of them, be not true, or if the two axes be not strictly
parallel, then no mechanical force whatever will avail to bring them into
conformity, and whatever the structure of the machine may be the
inevitable consequence is faulty printing. The great advantage, there-
fore, and the economy of employing engraved crusts of a thinness such
as above mentioned, is secured in my machine by a structure which
allows the motion from the engine to be applied to the boll instead of
being applied to the spindle of the engraved roller.
As to the second principal advantage attaching to the machine which
I claim as my Invention, namely, that of obviating the inconveniences
and excluding the many defects and mischances that attach to the print-
ing machines now generally in use, it is desirable to state what those
faults are, and to show whence they result.
It is obvious that great mechanical difficulties must always attend
the endeavour to obtain a perfectly equable impression from the surface
of a cylinder, however solid may be its structure, when there is a great
disproportion between the length and the diameter of such a body,
reckoning this length from the one point of resistance to the other of
the spindles upon which it revolves. In any such case, and especially
where a severe nip is required to bring out the work, there will take
place, in a greater or less degree, some bending of the cylinder as it

page_text: rotates, or what is technically called a
springing of the roller." From
this curvature or bending, which in the present structure of the printing
inachine necessarily takes place, faulty printing results, besides a great
waste of power, an undue wear and tear of the machine itself, and
frequent fracture of the spindles, a great destruction of the textile and
elastic materials or lapping which are used as furniture of the machine,
and an unnecessary and uneven wear of the engraved roller. So far as
in any degree a springing or bending of the roller and mandril takes
place in consequence of the force that is applied at the journals, it is
obvious that the roller at every rotation is, as to its middle portion, per-
forming a revolution, by torsion, around its own axis, or around a line
hypothetically extended from the centre point of one spindle to the centre
point of the other. To effect such a rotation in a solid mass of iron and
copper implies the application of a very great steam power in excess of that
which would be required, irrespectively of any such curvature. Besides,
this springing of the roller, which makes it difficult to obtain a full im-
pression from the middle portion of the roller, leads to the use of
additional packing upon the boll; and yet this remedy does but aggra-
vate the mischief; or if it is compensated by the unequal yielding of
the elastic substance which surrounds the boll, then, in fact, the two
ends of the roller, as related to the middle portion, are travelling at
differential velocities, and from this cause arises a distortion of the
figure, or a dragging of the piece at the sides or the middle. The actual
presence of this cause of incorrect printing is, moreover, indicated by the
heat that is generated in the journals of the machine, and also by
that crushing and rapid destruction of the blanketting towards its
edges which is found to take place. The same causes of mischief
which give rise to the employment often of as much as seven tons
pressure, obtained by compound levers in single colour machines, pro-
duce ill consequences of another kind in the case of two, three, or more
colour machines; for as it seldom happens that the several engravings
constituting together one pattern, and which are printed simultaneously
against the same boll, are of equal fineness so as to require precisely
the same amount of pressure to bring them properly out, and if, as
often happens, a fine engraving forms one of a set together with
others having broad solids, the degree of pressure which is proper to

page_text: these engravings severally may differ to the extent of a ton weight
or more. In this case, as the several rollers are brought to bear in
succession upon the same thickness of elastic lapping, this thickness
becomes compressed in different degrees by the nip it sustains under
each roller; consequently, while the diameter of the rollers are identical
or are carefully adapted to each other in a due order, they are brought
into frictional contact with a cylinder, namely, the boll, the surface of
which offers to them so many different diameters, and is therefore, in
fact, moving at different rates. Hence, by the necessity of the case,
the intervening piece, with the blanket, is being dragged under one
roller by any one of its neighbours, the superficial velocity of which
exceeds its own. In such cases no care on the part of the printer will
avail to prevent the occurrence of misfits; and hence also arises a
difficulty on the part of the engraver, who, with due care, has effected
a perfect relationship among the several rollers, which, in the hands of
the printer, fails to secure accuracy in the fit. In the machine now
to be described, having provided for the use of thin crusts or shells of
copper or of other metal when such are intended to be used, by putting
the boll instead of the spindle of the engraved roller into gearing with
the engine I obtain the nip that is requisite for effecting perfect work
in the printing of fine engravings by means of a different structure of the
machine, which is this,-I bring the engraved roller, with its own
weight and that of the carriage connected with it, to descend freely
upon the boll on a surface or incline more or less vertical, and at an
elevation greater or less above the level of the horizontal diameter of
the boll, so as shall give it an augmenting lateral pressure inversely
as that elevation is less. This being the elementary principle of the
machine in the actual construction of it, so as to secure a mechanical
equilibrium throughout its several parts while in action, the engraved
roller forms one of three cylinders, which are so lodged between opposed
jambs as that the axes of the three shall be always in line, and this line
forming an angle more or less acute with the horizontal diameter of the
middle cylinder, namely, the boll. The exterior cylinder of this set
being the engraved roller, and the middle cylinder the boll; the exterior
cylinder, on the other hand, is a support roller, or rather a pair of rollers,
which sustain the boll in a direction opposed to the pressure or nip

page_text: which it receives from the engraved roller. The boll occupying a fixed
position in brackets or pedestals, the support rollers admit of an adjust-
ment so as to bring them always into their due linear direction, as
above stated, while the engraved roller, working in a carriage, is left to
descend upon the boll by moving freely upon the faces or edges of a
pair of jambs, inclined more or less from the vertical; or, if requisite,
these surfaces may be absolutely perpendicular, so as to throw, the roller
with its entire weight upon the boll. It is evident that as to the inclined
planes or surfaces upon which the engraved roller and carriage. takes a
bearing, that these might, as related to the boll, be brought into other
positions than those above mentioned so as to effect a nip yet with less
advantage.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS.
I, side elevation marked A; II, front elevation marked B; III,
plan marked C. The printing machine represented in the drawings
marked A, B, C, is a single colour machine, in which form, as being of
course less complicated, its structure is the more easily exhibited. In
adapting this structure to the printing of two, three, or more colours,
the same elementary principle is adhered to, as will presently be
explained. But, in fact, for the purpose of printing in several colours
simultaneously a machine for which I have obtained a Patent, dated
July fifteenth, One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, will, I
believe, be found the most simple and the most serviceable. As to the
subordinate adjustments of the machine, such as that for the supply of
the colour, that for rendering the piece or calico with the mackintosh
or blanket at the back of the machine, and that for drying the piece
when printed, these may be such as are now usually employed.
I. In the drawing marked A, side elevation, a, a, a, is a casting which
forms the framework or support of the machine, and upon which the
working parts of it take their bearing.
These sides have tabular projections a, a, a, as seen in the plan, sup-
ported by the brackets b, b, (front elevation).
Cross pieces or bars c, c, c, (plan) with flanges and bolts, connect the
two side castings beneath, so as to give stability to the machine, which
is also bolted down to the floor or to solid masonry.

page_text: "
connects the two side
allow the pressman or
1.
A tabular casting D, D, shown in the plan,
castings above, and this is hollowed out so as to
printer to take his position close up to the engraved roller while the
machine is in action, and where he may inspect the piece as it comes off
in printing,
1.
E, E, are pedestals, one on each side of the machine, and which are
firmly bolted down to the tabular projections a, a.
These pedestals receive the spindles or axes of the boll, and support
it in its place, the necks working in steps e, e, which are secured in the
usual mode by bolts and caps.
In the rear of the machine, as seen in the side elevation, pair of
support rollers F, F, is brought to bear upon the boll, so as to keep it
in a state of mechanical equilibrium, as borne upon, on the opposite
side, by the engraved roller.
Between these support rollers there is an interval sufficient for 'allow-
ing a passage between them for the piece, and for any blanketting or
other material that may pass with it in printing.
These support rollers are brought to bear against the boll, with more
or less pressure, as may be required, by means of a packing f, f, and
screws g, g.
They are adjustable also, as to the position they take in their bearing
upon the boll, by means of the screws i, i, which elevate or depress the
cheeks j, j, in which their spindles work, and also by means of the
inclined jambs k, k, which give these cheeks a position more or less
approaching the vertical. The adjusting screws m, m, and n, n, cause
these cheeks and jambs to advance or recede, as related to the boll.
Beside these adjustments, each of these support rollers with its cheek
and jamb, has a transverse movement in the grooves o, o, as shewn in
the plan, by means of which they may be brought nearer to each other
or further apart, in adaptation to the width of the piece and the corre-
sponding length of the engraved roller.
These several adjustments answer the purpose of bringing the sup-
port rollers always into a position of direct opposition to the engraved
roller, so as that the axes of the several cylindrical bodies shall be
situated on a line, which line is inclined to the horizontal diameter of
the boll.

page_text: Although the machine would, no doubt, act if constructed without
these support rollers, yet they are important to it as precluding any
strain or unequal pressure in the journals when the nip between the
engraved roller and the boll is so extreme, as is often required 'in print-
ing the very fine engravings called "covers."
The anterior part of the machine is occupied by a pair of jambs P, P,
and the supporting lims Q, Q. These jambs are jointed above, and
are connected by a transverse rod and bolts r, r, as seen in the front
elevation. 7 These jambs and their limbs or props take a movement
upon feet S, S, S, S, and these feet working upon the screws T, T,
recede or advance as may be requisite for bringing the engraved rollér
into its proper position against the boll.
The jambs P, P, are each formed of two plates, while the supporting
limh or prop Q, to each jamb is a single plate, as is seen in the front
elevation.
The screws, by means of which the feet S; S, are made to move in
their slides, are worked by a transverse screw and winches a, a, as in
the side elevation. The front edges of these jambs, as toward the boll,
are perfectly true throughout their extent, from p, to p. Their interior
sides are also true, so as to allow the flange u, u, of the sliders W, W,
to move at ease upon and between them; u, is a notch on the posterior
edge of the flange, which receives a transverse bar, upon which weights
may be placed when additional pressure is required.
Each of these sliders W, W, has a fixing X, X, solidly one with it
for sustaining the engraved roller and its mandril, which fixing has a
pin or spindle y, y, and this pin works easily in a corresponding eye
or socket of the mandril whereupon the engraved roller is placed.
When the engraved roller is to be brought into its place for printing,
the jambs are inclined by lifting the hind limbs Q, Q, from their
sockets, and bringing them to a rest upon brackets or upon a stool in
front of the machine, so as to to suit the convenience of the printer and
his assistant in lodging the engraved roller upon the sliders by the pins
above mentioned.
The engraved roller having been lodged upon the sliders, the limbs
or props are brought up from their rests and replaced upon their feet.
The winches a, a, being turned, first that which works the feet of the

page_text: jambs, and then that working the feet of the limbs or props, the
engraved roller is made to advance, so as to come home to its bearing
upon the boll, as above stated, a few degrees more or less above the
level of the horizontal line.
The engraved roller is then left to descend with its own weight and
that of the sliders, and what may be attached to them upon the boll
impinging upon it, at an angle such as gives it a wedge-like pressure
or nip, which is severe in proportion as the line of contact approaches
the horizontal level.
When the position that is best adapted for the nature of the work
in each case has been ascertained, and when the adjustments above
mentioned have been made, the bolts b, b, eight in number, on each side
are made fast, so as that the jambs are retained in their places immove-
ably while the machine is in action.
The machine, by its toothed gearing, receives its motion from the
engine, so that the boll rotates in the direction of the arrows.
The pieces being wound on in the usual manner are lodged in the
rear of the machine, as at C, C, and pass with the macintosh or blanket
between the two support rollers and underneath the boll, so as to pass
between this and the engraved roller in the direction indicated by the
arrows.
The colour box and supply roller, with the docters, take their place in
contact with the engraved roller in the usual manner, or otherwise, as
may be found most convenient.
When the intended number of pieces has been printed, and the
engraved roller has to give place to another, its removal is thus effected:
If the transverse bar lodged in the notches of the sliders has been used
for carrying additional weight, it is to be slipped from its place. A
carriage on rollers, furnished with levers, is then run in between the
jambs, and these levers, with hooked ends, take the roller and give it a
lift of three or four inches.
The limbs QQ, are then lifted from their sockets, and carried back
upon the rests or stool above mentioned. This movement releases the
sliders with the roller entirely from the jambs; each slider is then slid
off right and left upon a shelf or stool, and the engraved roller on its
mandril is free to be removed. The machine is then also in its proper

page_text: position for bringing another roller into its place for printing, as already
described.
f
The printing machine, as thus
described and exhibited in the draw-
ings, while it is adapted to the printing of the rollers now ordinarily
employed, provide for the use of the thinnest crusts of copper or
other metal which can be manufactured or engraved. For it is
evident, that if such a thin crust or shell be slipped upon a mandril or
iron shell so as to fit it easily, it will, in printing, retain its superficial
relationship to the boll by its frictional contact in revolving, and will do
so whether or not it may travel or slip circumferentially upon its own
mandril or inner shell. All that is requisite is, that it shall be free to
conform itself to the circumferential impulse which it receives from the
boll, the boll being the source of motion received from the engine
Moreover, as in this machine the boll is of such diameter as to avoid
flexure even without the aid of the support rollers, and as the engraved
roller is not brought to bear upon it by means of levers acting upon the
spindles of its mandril, no curvature of itself is produced, and thus
those various inconveniences are avoided which necessarily result from
any such curvature as has already been stated.
Besides producing
a more perfect style of printing, a great saving in the elastic material
usually employed is effected, and the machine may be worked at more
than the usual speed with greater safety. Such being the structure of
my printing machine as adapted to single color printing, in which
form its principle is the most easily made intelligible, it may be adapted
to the printing in two, three, or more colours by additional parts and
adjustments of the following kind:
It has already been said, that as the several engravings, which
together constitute one pattern, are seldom, if ever, such as to be well
printed by the same amount of pressure, and as the application. of
different pressure to the same elastic material produces a constant
tendency to misfitting among these several rollers, hence it appears
to be desirable, or indeed an indispensable condition of perfect. filting,
that each engraved roller should be brought to bear upon its own boll
and its own elastic material, so as that each may receive the nip it
requires without interference with the diameter and velocity of its next
neighbours.
1

page_text: This being, as I believe it is, a necessary condition of perfect printing,
my machine is well adapted to secure so important a result, which may
be effected in the following manner:
For instance, a two-colour machine would require the jambs and props
to be so far extended in length as to give room for another roller with
its sliders to move freely immediately above the first, this having its
own boll so applied as to
as to come in contact with it in that position.
Thus may a third or fourth roller be applied. This difference only
being noted, that as the pressure required in printing the second, third,
and fourth of a series of engravings is comparatively slight, the support
rollers are unnecessary, these being required for effecting the most
extreme pressure, as above said.
Nevertheless, for printing simultaneously in several colours, a machine
for which also I have obtained a Patent will, I believe, be found to be
the simplest in its structure, and the most effective.
It is manifest that a machine on this construction, and which is
described as adapted to the printing of calicoes or other woven fabrics,
is well adapted to the purpose of printing on paper in any case in
which the color or ink is of such consistence or quality as admits of
its being entirely and rapidly removed by a scraping edge like the
docter, or other suitable apparatus.
In
witness whereof, I, the said Isaac Taylor, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Seventeenth day of September, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-
three.