Copperplate printing

“ A Writing or Drawing is made on Stone, with an Ink prepared with a sort of unctuous ingredient—to this is applied another Ink of a contrary quality; the Ink with which the Writing or Drawing is made, remains on the Stone, while that with which the Printing is performed, separates from it, and is thus transferred to the Paper. This method has been brought to very great perfection; so much so, as to produce Prints from Drawings possessing nearly all the beauty and delicacy of Copperplate or Steel Engravings. ”

“ A "dry point" plate is produced by drawing on a copper plate with a steel or diamond point, and without biting by acid. The lines are cut into the copper and a burr thrown up which holds the ink in printing, and produces a soft, velvety line. The method of printing such a plate is similar to that of an etching, but the possibilities are not as great in the printing, as they rest to a greater extent upon the work of the artist. A great depth of color, producing wonderfully rich effects, can be obtained and the finer lines can be made much more delicate than by any other method. ”

“ In printing from copper plates, the ink, instead of being spread on the surface of the plate by means of a flexible roller as in ordinary type printing, is smeared over the previously warmed plate and thereby forced into the deep parts of the plate. Then, after the surface is polished, the paper picks out the ink from these cavities and so forms the picture. Therefore, instead of using a negative for producing the resist, a transparency is required ”

“ Nature immediately takes up her part of the work, and a brilliant coating of copper is deposited upon the mould. When sufficiently thick, it is taken out of the battery, and, as you may notice, presents on the wrong side the appearance of a printed sheet of copper. This sheet is then filled up on the back to the requisite degree of thickness, and fastened to a block, ready to be used with type on a common printing-press. ”

“ The inking and cleansing of the plate, always dirty and disagreeable work, has hitherto been done only by hand. All the manipulations of copper-plate work are slow and difficult: they present many obstacles to the use of labor-saving machinery.
In lithography the design to be printed, which may be engraved on stone or copper, or written with pen on paper, is transferred by a greasy ink upon the smooth surface of a stone of peculiar fineness and firmness. ”

“ Stereotyping is a cheap process. A plate of this page of type can be had for about one-half the cost of the composition. The stereotype plate has all the advantages pertaining to an engraving on a lithographic stone, and it is more durable and portable.
Typography has a marked advantage in the greater ease with which printing types are inked. In the copper-plate process, the plate must be first blackened over the entire surface, and then cleansed with even greater care, before an impression can be taken. This labor cannot be intrusted to machinery, but must be done by a practised workman. ”

“ It is easier to produce all kinds of script on stone, both with fatty inks and with the engraving needle. Therefore lithography serves excellently for charts and similar work, which can be done at least three times faster on stone than on copper.
If copper-printing is to reach a high degree of perfection, the printing itself must be done by very excellent workmen. Indeed, some persons allege that the very best German copper-plate printers do not yet equal the Parisians. Printing from stone is not so difficult, and only a few particular methods demand especial care or unusual knowledge. ”

“ These, added to the soft nature of grown copper, as compared to rolled or hammered copper, which is used in the biting methods, necessitates the greatest care in printing, and usually require very strong and sometimes forcing inks to give the necessary strength, and although a plate be steel-faced it will not hold out for a large number of impressions. ”

“ COPPER-PLATE PRINTING.
Copper, or Steel-plate Engravings, are Printed by a different process. The Copper, or Steel-plate Press, is formed of two Rollers, one placed over the other, with only a sufficient space between to allow a board to pass, when a strong force is applied. The Plate is then laid on a small fire adapted to the purpose, so as to heat it sufficiently to liquify the Ink, and cause it to diffuse itself over every part of the Engraving. ”

“ If such a safe edge be not provided, the carbon print will not adhere to the copper during development; therefore, the extreme edges of the tissue must be guarded from the light during the exposure in the printing frame.
The exposure to light under the negative or transparency must be timed by means of an actinometer, which may be improvised by dividing a strip of tracing paper into ten spaces, and numbering these spaces so:
Write the figures with good black ink and then cut other pieces of white tracing paper into strips of the same width. ”

“ Prints produced by the third method, copper-plate printing, give far greater difficulties to the photo-mechanical worker. Every pull from the engraved plate—etching scraper drawing and photogravure excepted—possesses a tone on its surface, which is, moreover, very unequal, and although increasing its artistic qualities, offers, however, considerable difficulties for reproduction. ”

“ It is probable that, about this time, many of the more skillful engravers and designers407 abandoned the practice of xylography, attracted, no doubt, by the superior advantages offered by the newly invented art of copper-plate printing. The art of engraving on wood, although it afterward enlisted the services of artists like Durer and Holbein, could not compete with this formidable rival. It suffered a long eclipse, from which it did not emerge until the days of Bewick.
The quality of the paper in early books is as unequal as the printing. ”

“ As the transfer from the plate can be readily made it is also better applicable to small editions than is photolithography. It is, however, not as convenient in the latter respect as plate printing, and it does not give a resulting impression equal in clearness or durability to the impression directly from the plate.
Etching on copper for chart publication has been recently developed in the Coast and Geodetic Survey. A finished tracing is made, the surface of a smooth copper plate is sensitized, and by exposure to the sun a print is made on the sensitized surface. ”

“ The slenderness of the incised lines, the fineness and hardness of the metal, and the peculiar method by which the ink is laid on the plate and fixed to the paper, give to prints from engravings on steel or p020 on copper a sharpness of line, a brilliancy of color, a delicacy of tone, and a receding in perspective, which have always won for this branch of printing the preference of artists. Yet it is a slow and expensive process. A steel-plate engraver may be engaged for many months upon a large plate, from which but forty perfect impressions can be taken in a day. ”

“ The manufacture of printing-ink or color is very difficult and dangerous on a large scale. I counsel all to take lessons from a book printer when he makes it.
The varnish must be prepared in the open, far from buildings, because of its combustibility. The best utensils and skilled workmen are required, because otherwise terrible accidents may occur, and even life be lost through explosion of the copper receptacle. ”

“ The arts of lithography and copper-plate are useful and beautiful methods of printing, but they do not make books and newspapers.1 The necessity which compels them to p023 make a new engraving for every new subject restricts them almost exclusively to the field of art and ornament. If no other method of printing were known, encyclopedias and newspapers would be impossibilities. “The art preservative of all arts” is not the art of lithography nor of copper-plate. ”

“ No doubt every printer is aware that the prints produced from the same negative and on the same sample of albumenised paper similarly sensitized vary considerably in richness and depth on different days. For instance, when the light is bad, and when, consequently, the printing takes a long time, the colour of the darkened surface will be found to be much duller than on a day when the light is powerful. ”

“ He was not content to illustrate a book by isolated copper or steel plates apart from the text, although in his craft as engraver he constantly carried out the work of others. When he came to embody his own thoughts and dreams, he recurred quite spontaneously to the methods of the maker of the MS. books. He became his own calligrapher, illuminator and miniaturist, while availing himself of the copper-plate (which he turned into a surface printing block) and the printing press for the reproduction of his designs, and in some cases for producing them in tints. ”

“ The plate can then be rolled with ordinary printing-ink, and impressions taken to any reasonable amount.
Space will not permit us to detail the various modifications of this process which exist under different designations. Metal plates can now, by a very similar treatment, be made ready for the etching acid. Wood-blocks which no artist but the sun has touched, can be given to the engraver ready to his hand. The lithographic printer is also independent of the draughtsman, for absolutely perfect fac-similes of maps, plans, &c.; line-subjects can also be produced in endless quantity. ”

“ Dry-point is a method of working direct on to the copper with a sharp point, which raises a burr on each side of the line, giving it a characteristic quality. Dry-point, etching proper, and engraving proper are often combined in one plate; and a mixture of etching with mezzotint or aquatint is not uncommon. In printing, a matter of first-rate importance, the ink is rubbed into the lines and superfluous ink wiped from the surface of the plate, ink being left in any place where a tint is required. ”

“ As to copper-printing: in the future, as lithography extends, there probably will remain an advantage with the copper in the case of only two styles, the engraving done with the engraving needle, and the etching, the latter being worked up with the graver and the cold needle. In this respect, however, the skill of the artist must be taken into account, for a good man can produce better work on stone, even in those two styles, than a less skillful man can produce on copper. ”

“ This increases in quantity until it has acquired the thickness of a sheet of stout paper. The upper surface of this "shell," when taken from the mould, is a perfect fac-simile of the face of the original page. This thin shell would be crushed flat by the immense pressure of the printing-press. It must be "backed up" with type-metal. This metal will not, even when melted, adhere firmly to a sheet of copper, but it will adhere to tin, and melted tin will adhere to copper. A sheet of tin-foil is laid upon the back of the copper shell, which is secured in a shallow iron tray, and heated. ”

“ If pulls are specially prepared for reproduction the copper-plate printer must very carefully polish his plate and print without a tone, but still this must not be done so that the plate is too strongly polished that the depths lose their vigour ”

“ The leading material forces in newspaper production are type, paper, and presses.
Printing types are cast from a composition which is made one-half of lead, one-fourth of tin, and one-fourth of antimony, though these proportions are slightly reduced, so as to admit what the chemist calls of copper "a trace," the sum of these parts aiming at a metal which "shall be hard, yet not brittle; ductile, yet tough; flowing freely, yet hardening quickly." ”

“ Collotype or copper-plate printing inks of various makes are frequently usable. As a rule, however, they must be tested as to their usefulness for our process; their consistency is frequently too hard, and sometimes they are not taken up by the film or cannot be distributed well, even when they are considerable diluted with linseed oil varnish, in spite of an apparently correct consistency.
The nature of the ink is not only influenced by the greasy substance used as a medium, but also by the material of the coloring matter itself. ”

“ This copper reproduction of the woodcut is filled in at the back with metal, mounted on wood, and is then ready for the printer, who has his ‘overlays’ all ready, and the business of printing begins.
There is nothing more wonderful in the history of printing than the rapid development of the printing machine and the extraordinary increase of its productive power. The ordinary press, though greatly improved, was found quite inadequate to the demands made upon it; and, the attention of practical men being directed to some more rapid means of production, the steam printing machine was invented. ”

“ Lithography, it should be added, is only suitable in cases where comparatively few copies are needed, or where a temporary issue must be printed expeditiously. It is a process which demands but little capital outlay, a fact which has made it a favourite means of stamp-producing among the poorer republics of South America. With forgers, too, it has gained favour in their work of imitating genuine stamps.
Engraving, known variously under the name of copper-plate printing, engraving in taille-douce, and line-engraving, produces the finest stamps figuring in our collections. ”

“ Copper or steel engravings are made from designs furnished either by the engraver or by some other designer. For simple engraved lettering such as is customarily used on business stationery, the cost of a copper plate is about ten cents a letter. For elaborate designs the costs increase proportionately. Steel plates, which are more durable, cost about sixty per cent more. Printing from such plates is considerably more expensive than the two processes previously described. ”