Inking apparatus for the hand-press

Messrs. R. Hoe & Co., of New York, have invented an improved inking apparatus for the hand-press. It is attached to an ordinary press, and the inking is done by the ordinary operation of the press, thus dispensing with one person’s labour. It also gives a more perfect distribution. The large distributing cylinder, which is turned by a crank, vibrates. There are two rollers to ink the forme, moving in a carriage with four wheels, those on one end being plain, those on the other having a projecting flange. Two Avrought-iron rails lie on the bed of the press, outside the chase; one of them grooved to receive the projecting flanges on one pair of the wheels, the other level on the surface. Projecting from the frame are two short rails, on which the wheels rest while the rollers are receiving ink from the cylinder. The machine is set up behind the press so that the short rails on it agree exactly, both in height and width, with the rails on the bed of the press when it is run out. The journal boxes of the inking rollers have adjusting screws, so that they may bear more or less on the type, as circumstances require. This apparatus is chiefly useful on presses of small size, for few pressmen, have the strength to use it in connexion with a large press.