IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF ORNAMENTAL SURFACES FOR JEWELLERY AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Walter Bentley Woodbury at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 17th
February 1866.
I, WALTER BENTLEY WOODBURY, of Worcester Park, in the County of
Surrey, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said. Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF ORNAMENTAL SURFACES FOR JEWELLERY
AND OTHER PURPOSES," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to the production of surfaces to be used for jewellery
and other ornamental purposes by the aid of photography, and the principal
feature of novelty in the Invention consists in the use of a combination of
materials one of which is opaque and the other transparent or semi-transparent.
An ornamental "relievo" or "intaglio" surface being produced on the former
the transparent or semi-transparent material is forced therein and united
thereto, and the picture or ornament will be seen through the upper material
more or less, according to the thickness of the same. For example, I take
a metal mould produced by the method described in the Specification of
Letters Patent granted to me, and bearing date 23rd September 1864, No.
2338 (but produced from a transparent photographic "positive" instead of a
"negative"), and I take an impression or cast therefrom in white material,
such as porcelain, plaster of Paris, or enamel; or if a "negative" be used to
produce the metal mould I take a reversed cast or electrotype therefrom, and

page_text: take the impression in white material from this reversed copy. This cast so
obtained will have the lights in high relief and the shades proportionately
countersunk or depressed; I then force into this white cast or mould a
colored semi-transparent material, such as glass or enamel, and I grind or
otherwise level down the surface of the latter until the white cast becomes
sufficiently visible through the semi-transparent material to produce the
effect desired, the former showing more or less according to the thinness or
thickness of the semi-transparent material; I then unite or cement these
two materials together by fusion or otherwise, and the result is a permanent
picture or ornament.in a combined opaque and semi-transparent substance;
or the two materials may be united together before the grinding away or
levelling down of the semi-transparent material.
As a modification of my Invention I produce a metallic surface in "relievo"
or intaglio by the electrotype process or by stamping, embossing, or other-
wise, and then silver or gild it by any known method, and afterwards fill in
with the semi-transparent vitreous or other material as above described; or
instead of taking a cast or copy as above first mentioned in white material
I take an impression in ebonite or other black or dark colored substance, and
I fill in with a semi-transparent white or light colored material, so that the
effect is produced by the dark color showing more or less through the semi.
transparent white or light colored material,
The only condition necessary to this Invention being that the relief shall be
upon the lower or opaque material constituting the body of the picture or
ornament, which must be of a different or opposite color to that of the semi,
transparent material used for filling in the surface.