Machine

In England, a press in which the operation of laying-on the sheet, inking the forme, and effecting the impression, among others, are automatically performed, is called a machine; although, to speak correctly, every press is a machine, and every printing machine is a press, as is said in America. We shall, for convenience sake, adopt the distinction conventionally observed, and speak of presses separately from machines.

The invention of machines has given an impetus to the progress of the art of printing, and has thereby accelerated the diffusion of knowledge to an extent which cannot be contemplated without a feeling of amazement. By the use of machines, sheets of paper can be printed of a size which could not possibly be obtained on a press worked by hand, and at a speed which, compared with that of the hand-press, is as that of the express train to the tortoise. Several persons lay claim to the honour of having invented the first machine, or of adapting the cylinder principle to the impression of paper by raised characters. We shall not endeavour to set at rest a question so vexed, and our descriptions of the different machines will be taken direct from the records of the Patent Office, and be given strictly in chronological order.

We ought to mention, at the commencement, that Savage, in his excellent “Dictionary of Printing,” treats machine printing as synonymous with cylindrical printing, which it is not, for platen machines are certainly not presses. The only distinction which can be logically drawn is that we have alluded to above—the fact of certain operations being effected automatically.

The inventions patented in Great Britain of this class come under certain heads, as follows, according to the shape of the cylinders and the surface pressed by them:—

1. Flat-forme pressing-cylinder.
2. Flat-forme conical pressing-roller.
3. Prismatic-forme pressing-cylinder.
4. Cylindrical-forme (convex) pressing-cylinder.
5. Cylindrical-forme (convex) flat pressing-surface.
6. Cylindrical-forme (concave) pressing-cylinder.
7. Flat-forme pressing flat surface.

It is undoubtedly the fact that the first suggestion on the records of the Patent Office, for the employment of the cylindrical principle in typographic impression, is due to William Nicholson, who, in 1790, obtained Letters Patent for “a machine or instrument on a new construction, for the purpose of printing on paper, linen, cotton, woollen, and other articles, in a more neat, cheap, and accurate manner than is effected by the machines now in use.” The first clauses refer to the fabrication of types. These types, imposed in chases of wood or metal adapted to the surface of a cylinder, are fastened “to the said surface by screws or wedges, or in grooves, or by other means well known to workmen.” “Blocks, formes, types, plates, and originals,” are likewise fastened on the surface of cylinders “for other kinds of work.”

The ink is furnished to the printing surface by a “colouring cylinder,” covered with “leather, or the dressed skins which printers call pelts or * * * with woollen, or linen, or cotton cloth,” “and stuffed with horsehair, wool, or woollen cloth, defended by leather or oilskin.” Distribution is effected by two or three small rollers applied “longitudinally against the colouring cylinder, so that they may be turned by the motion of the latter.” If the colour be thin, a doctor of wood or metal, “or a straight brush, or both of these last,” are applied to the colouring cylinder. Colour is applied “to an engraved plate or cylinder or * * * through the interstices of a perforated pattern (or cylinder)” by “a cylinder entirely covered with hair or bristles in the manner brush.”

The material to be printed (damped, if necessary) is passed “between two cylinders or segments of cylinders in equal motion,” one having the printed surface imposed, and the other with cloth or leather * * * so as to take off an impression of the colour previously applied.” * * Or, the printing surface, previously coloured, is passed in contact with the material wrapped round a clothed cylinder, or the clothed cylinder with the material round it rolled over the printing-surface “previously coloured.” Or, the printing-surface, coloured by a colouring-cylinder, rolls along the material “spread out upon an even plane.” This process is applicable to books and every other flexible material.

The drawings represent:—

1. A press in which the type-table passes between an upper and lower cylinder, the former (clothed) acting upon the table “by means of cog-wheels or straps, so as to draw it backwards or forwards by the motion of its handle.” A box containing the inking-roller, with its distributors above it, is supported by an arm from the head of the machine. On the end of the typo-table is an “ink block,” and upon it a vibrating roller which, by the action of a bent lever, “dabbs against one of the distributing-rollers and gives it a small quantity of ink.” The tympan, winch opens sideways, with paper on it, is laid upon the forme when it arrives between the inking roller and machine-head. Alter the impression, the workman on the other sido of the cylinders “takes off the sheet and leaves the tympan up.”
2. A printing cylinder has (gearing with it) a pressing cylinder below and a colouring cylinder above, the latter being provided with distributors as in I., and furnished by a vibrator from a trough. A sheet of paper is applied to the surface of the pressing cylinder where it is retained by points “in the usual manner,” or by the apparatus in IV.
3. The machine is uniformly driven in one direction by hand power applied to the printing cylinder. Another drawing represented a pressing cylinder and inking roller, with distributors, rigidly united and geared into a rack on a long table divided into four parts.

4. The sheet is laid down on the former (two modes by which “the paper is taken up and laid down” are specified) at

   1. the impression is received at
   2. the sheet discharged at
   3. and then the cylinder returns (clearing the forme by a peculiar contrivance) to 1.

The specification ends thus:—“I must take notice that in these and every other of my machines, as well as in every machine whatever, the power may be wind, water, steam, animal strength, or any other natural change capable of producing motion.”* Such was undoubtedly the first suggestion for the application of the cylindrical principle.

Savage (“Dictionary,” p. 461) gives some particulars concerning Nicholson himself. It appears that he published a number of works on scientific and practical subjects, and conducted Nicholson’s Journal of Science, &c. He kept a large school in Soho-square; and, in addition to his other multifarious pursuits, was an agent for a nobleman, whose sudden death left him in difficulties from which be could never extricate himself. It does not, however, appear that his plans and experiments ended in any actually practical results.

The accomplishment of this revolution in our art is due to a young Saxon, M. Kœnig, a printer by occupation, who conceived it possible to print by steam, though at first he expected no more than to be able to give accelerated speed to the common press, to which end his first efforts were bent. The Literary Gazette, Oct. 26, 1822, gives some interesting particulars of this man: and still more recently, Macmillan’s Magazine, 1869, p. 135, has called attention to him, in a most interesting article written by Mr. Samuel Smiles.

Kœnig arrived in England in 1806. He was compelled to work at his trade for a time, but he lost no opportunity of bringing his great idea under the notice it master printers likely to take it up. After meeting with numerous rebuffs and disappointments, he at last found what he was in search of—a man of capital willing to risk his money in developing the invention, and Bringing it into practical operation. This was Thomas Bensley, a leading London printer, with whom Kœnig entered into a contract in March 1807, to accomplish his proposed printing machine; Bensley, on his part, undertaking to find the requisite money for the purpose. Kœnig then proceeded to mature his plans, and construct a model machine, which occupied him the greater part of three years, and a patent was taken out for the invention on the 29th of March, 1810.

Steps were next taken to erect a working model, to put it to the test of actual practice. In the meantime Kœnig had been joined by another ingenious German mechanic, Andrew F. Bauer, who proved of much service to him in working out its details. At length, in April 1811, the first printing machine driven by steam-power was constructed and ready for use; and the first work it turned out was sheet h of the “Annual Register” for 1810, which it printed at the rate of eight hundred impressions an hour,—the first sheet of a book over printed by a machine and by steam-power. In this first machine of Koenig’s, the arrangement was somewhat similar to that known as the “platen machine;” the printing being produced by two flat plates, as in the common hand-press.

It also embodied an ingenious arrangement for inking the type. Instead of the old-fashioned inking balls, which were beaten over the type by hand, several cylinders covered with felt and leather were employed, these forming part of the machine itself. Two of the cylinders revolved in opposite directions, so as to spread the ink, which was then transferred to two other inking cylinders alternately applied to the forme by the action of spiral springs. This platen machine of Kœnig’s, though it has since been taken up anew and perfected, was not considered by him to be sufficiently simple in its arrangement to be adapted for common use; and he had scarcely completed it when he was already revolving in his mind a plan of a second machine on a new principle, with the object of ensuring greater speed, economy, and simplicity.

By this time two other well-known London printers, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Woodfall, joined Bensley and Kœnig in their partnership for the manufacture and sale of printing machines. Kœnig, thus encouraged, proceeded with his new scheme, the patent for which was taken out on October 30th, 1811. The principal feature of this invention was the printing cylinder in the centre of the machine, by which the impression was taken from the types, instead of by fiat plates as in the first arrangement. The forme was fixed on a cast-iron plate which ran to and fro on a table, being received at each end by strong spiral springs. The other details of the specification included improvements in the inking apparatus, and an arrangement for discharging the sheet on the return of the forme.

A double machine on the same principle was included in this patent. Two other patents were taken out in 1813 and 1814,—the first of which included an important improvement in the inking arrangement, and a contrivance for holding and carrying on the sheet and keeping it close to the printing cylinder by means of endless tapes; while in the second were introduced the following new expedients: a feeder consisting of an endless web, an improved arrangement of the endless tapes by employing inner as well as outer friskets, an improvement of the register by which greater accuracy of impression was secured, and finally an arrangement by which the sheet was thrown out of the machine, printed on both sides.

Before, however, these last-mentioned improvements had been introduced, Kœnig had proceeded with the erection of a single-cylinder machine after the patent of 1811. It was finished and ready for use by December, 1812; and it was then employed to print the sheets g and h of Clarkson’s “Life of Penn,” Vol I., which it did in a satisfactory manner, at the rate of eight hundred impressions an hour.

When this machine had been got fairly to work, the proprietors of several of the leading London newspapers were invited to witness its performances—amongst others, Mr. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, and Mr. Walter, of the Times. Mr. Perry would have nothing to do with it, and would not even go to see it, regarding it as a gimcrack; but Mr. Walter, who had long been desirous of applying machinery to newspaper printing, at once went to see Kœnig’s machine on the premises in Whitecross-street, where it had been manufactured and was at work. He had before had several interviews with the inventor on the subject of a steam-press for the Times; but determined to wait the issue of the experimental machine which he knew to be in course of construction. A glance at the machine at work at once satisfied Mr. Walter as to the great value of the invention. Kœnig having briefly explained to him the working of a double machine on the same principle, Mr. Walter, after only a few minutes’ consideration, and before leaving the premises, ordered two double machines tor the printing of the Times newspaper.

In Nov., 1814, the Times announced that the greatest improvement connected with printing since the discovery of the art itself had been accomplished, inasmuch as a “system of machinery, almost organic, had been devised and arranged, which, while it relieved the human frame of its most laborious efforts in printing, far exceeded all human power in rapidity and despatch.” It stated that “no less than 1,100 sheets are impressed in one hour.” This number was sufficient at that time to meet the demand for the Times; but to meet the contingency of an increasing circulation Kœnig shortly after introduced a further modification, in the continual motion of the printing cylinder (the subject of his fourth patent), by which it was enabled to throw off from 1,500 to 2,000 copies in the hour. In the event of a still larger impression being required, Koenig was prepared to supply a four-cylinder or eight-cylinder machine on the same principle, by which; of course, the number of impressions would have been proportionately multiplied, but the necessities of the paper did not at that time call for so large a production, and the machines originally erected by Kœnig continued for many years sufficient to meet all the requirements of the proprietor.

The preceding description of the first steam printing machine possesses considerable historical interest, but the machine itself has since been completely eclipsed in its performances by at least a score of variously-constructed presses, some the production of English engineers, and some the invention of American, French, and German engineers. Among the principal machines now in use for printing newspapers, &c, are: The “Hoe” Machine, a description of which will he found on pp. 26, 27 of this “Dictionary of Typography,” and the “Bullock Machine,” described at p.5. The Times has recently perfected a new machine, which is known as “The Walter Press.” It is stated to be an almost original invention. Its principal merits are its simplicity, its compactness, its speed, and its economy. While each of the ten-feeder “Hoe” machines occupies a large and lofty room, and requires eighteen men to feed and work it, the new “Walter” machine occupies a space of only about 14 feet by 5 feet, or less than any newspaper machine yet introduced, and requires only three lads to take away, with half the attention of an overseer, who easily superintends two of the machines while at work. The “Hoe” machine turns out 7,000 impressions printed on both sides in the hour; but the “Walter” machine turns out 11,000 impressions complete in the same time.

The new invention does not in the least resemble any existing printing machine, unless it be the calendering machine, which has possibly furnished the type of it. At the printing end, it looks like a collection of small cylinders or rollers. The paper, mounted on a huge reel as it comes from the paper-mill, goes in at one end in an endless web, 3,300 yards in length, seems to fly through amongst the cylinders, and issues forth at the other in two descending torrents of sheets, accurately cut into lengths, and printed on both sides. The rapidity with which it works may be inferred from the fact that the printing cylinders (round which the stereotyped plates are fixed), while making their impressions on the paper, travel at the surprising speed of 200 revolutions a minute. As the sheet passes inwards, it is first damped on one side by being carried rapidly over a cylinder which revolves in a trough of cold water; it then passes on to the first pair of printing and impression cylinders, where it is printed on one side; it is next reversed and sent through the second pair, where it is printed on the other side; then it passes on to the cutting cylinders, which divide the web of now printed paper into the proper lengths. The sheets are rapidly conducted by tapes into a swing frame, which, as it vibrates, delivers them alternately on either side, in two apparently continuous streams of sheets, which are rapidly thrown forward from the frame by a rocker, and deposited on tables at which the lads sit to receive them. The machine is almost entirely self-acting, from the pumping up of the ink into the ink-box out of the cistern below stairs, to the registering of the numbers, as they are printed, in the manager’s room above.†

Newspapers of moderate circulation, and jobbing work generally, are now worked on machines the design of which was originally that of Kœnig, as improved by Applegath and Cowper about the year 1818. Innumerable improvements have been made subsequently, and the manufacture of printing machines has become a large and important business. Our space is inadequate even to enumerate the varieties of these machines. Remarks on Jobbing Machines will be found on p.33 of the “Dictionary of Typography.”