Fabrication

“ I need not speak of the science involved in this—the study of the fibers, of geographical features, the conditions under which raw materials are grown, the great centers of [20] manufacture and distribution, the physics involved in the machinery of production; nor, again, of the historical side—the influence which these inventions have had upon humanity. You can concentrate the history of all mankind into the evolution of the flax, cotton, and wool fibers into clothing. I do not mean that this is the only, or the best, center. ”

“ Then, again, there are many branches of manufacturing industry which greatly depend for their success upon the designer’s art, and it is necessary that the industrial designer should possess a knowledge of the processes of the manufacture in which his designs will be utilized, as well as of the properties and capabilities of the material to which they will be applied. ”

“ An art or process is patentable as well as machinery, though the inventor may not know the abstract principles involved in his art. But he must know and describe the steps by which the result is accomplished. A composition of matter is a mechanical mixture or chemical combination of two or more substances; and an improvement is an addition to, or change in, a known art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, which produces a useful result and is patentable if it amounts to invention. ”

“ The invention, then, is a product or manufacture made in a defined manner. It is not a product alone separated from the process by which it is created. The claim refers in terms to the antecedent description, without which it cannot be understood. The process detailed is thereby made as much a part of the invention as are the materials of which the product is composed. We shall not quote at large the description of the mode of making the plate. ”

“ Extensive forges, foundries, &c., for the machinery used, laboratories for chemical productions used in the trade, and mills for the manufacture of all descriptions of paper; engraving, as connected with the printing of cotton and muslin goods, is carried on to a great p. 93extent; and there are hat manufactories, and saw mills on a very large scale. It is needless to inform the reader, that an inspection of some of these immense hives of labour and invention, will well repay the trouble of a visit. ”

“ It cannot but seem astonishing, that in a department of industry, where the raw material has been so grossly neglected, where the machinery is so rude, and where there is so little division of labor, the results should be fabrics of the most exquisite delicacy and beauty, unrivalled by the products of any other nation, even those best skilled in the mechanic arts. ”

“ Shown by great firms from almost every state and territory were devices of various forms: Motors and apparatuses for the generation and transmission of power—fire-engines and other appliances for extinguishing a conflagration—machine tools and devices for working metals—machinery for the manufacture of textile fabrics and clothing, for cutting wood, for typesetting, printing, embossing, book making and paper working, lithography, and photo-mechanical process, for working-stone, clay, and other minerals. ”

“ What is it that is lacking? When I see a craftsman who has material lying ready at hand, I look for the finished product. Here also, then, is the craftsman, and here is the material; what do we yet lack? ”

“ In this connexion the question naturally arises, In what way do the progress and expansion of mechanical art affect the power and province of fine art? The great practical movement of the world in our age is a movement for the development of mechanical inventions and multiplication of mechanical products. Fine arts and machinery: “art manufactures.” So far as these inventions are applied to purposes purely useful, and so far as their products to not profess to offer anything delightful to contemplation, this movement in no way concerns our argument. ”

“ Industrial Arts Design develops the principles of industrial design in a new and logical form which, it is believed, will simplify the teaching of craft design. Chapters I to V deal with the elementary problems confronting the designer as he begins the first steps on his working drawing; Chapters VI to VIII show the methods by which he may express his individuality through contour or outline enrichment, while Chapters IX to XVII explain the treatment of the most difficult form of decoration, that of surface enrichment. ”

“ LECTURE III. — MODERN MANUFACTURE AND DESIGN. A Lecture delivered at Bradford, March, 1859.
It is with a deep sense of necessity for your indulgence that I venture to address you to-night, or that I venture at any time to address the pupils of schools of design intended for the advancement of taste in special branches of manufacture. No person is able to give useful and definite help towards such special applications of art, unless he is entirely familiar with the conditions of labour and natures of material involved in the work; and indefinite help is little better than no help at all. ”

“ From their columns he gathers materials for his own, and thus makes the same business use of them as does the merchant of his goods or the manufacturer of the raw material which he proposes to manufacture into fabric. ”

“ Arts Hunting, fishing, cooking, weaving, dyeing, carpentry, metallurgy, glass-, brick-, and paper-making, printing, and book-binding were in a more or less primitive stage, the mechanical arts showing much servile imitation and simplicity in design; but pottery, carving, and lacquer-work were in an exceptionally high state of development, the articles produced being surpassed in quality and beauty by no others in the world. ”

“ The branches of manufacture which require a knowledge of design, such as calico printing, silk and ribbon weaving, porcelain and pottery, and hardware manufactures, are conducted on a large scale by men of wealth and talent, who, if they would compete successfully with rival manufacturers, find it necessary to study and apply to their own business all the improvements in science, with which their intercourse with society gives them an opportunity of becoming acquainted. ”

“ Through man’s inventive genius the utility of this valuable product has been increased a hundred-fold, and its wider use has been the means of broadening and extending other manufactories. It has aided invention, and is the medium through which new discoveries, theories, and conclusions have been proclaimed. ”

“ For instance, the skill by which an inventive workman designs and moulds a beautiful cup, is skill of true art; but the skill by which that cup is copied and afterwards multiplied a thousandfold, is skill of manufacture: and the faculties which enable one workman to design and elaborate his original piece, are not to be developed by the same system of instruction as those which enable another to produce a maximum number of approximate copies of it in a given time. ”

“ If we confine our attention to some particular lot of raw materials, of rags, for instance, in paper manufacture, or of wire in needle manufacture, we perceive that it passes in succession through a series of stages in the hands of the various detail workmen until completion. On the other hand, if we look at the workshop as a whole, we see the raw material in all the stages of its production at the same time. ”

“ No matter, now, what the colour of the rag—how oily the cotton—what filth it has gathered and harboured through all its transmutation—the scientific paper-maker can produce out of these filthy materials one of the most beautiful productions of manufacture. ”

“ Any person who, by his own industry, genius, efforts, and expense, has invented or produced any new and original design for a manufacture, bust, statute, alto-relievo, or bas-relief; any new and original design for the printing of woolen, silk, cotton, or other fabrics; any new and original impression, ornament, pattern, print, or picture, to be printed, painted, cast, or otherwise placed on or worked into any article of manufacture ”

“ The best of all the wonderful and excellent work that is produced to-day by machinery is that which bears evidence in itself of its derivation from arts under the pure conditions of classic craftsmanship, and shows the influence of their study. ”

“ He wants to interfere with no manufactory whatsoever, and is content to insert any clause to confine him to the invention which he possesses, and which he has improved,’ &c.
“If Mr. Champion had accurately defined the nature of his own invention; if he had described the proportions of his materials necessary to make the body of his ware; if he had also specified the proportions of his materials necessary to produce his glaze, as every mechanical inventor who takes out a patent is obliged to specify the nature of the machine by which he produces his effect ”

“ Education and the Useful Arts.—For the successful prosecution among us of the manufacturing and mechanic arts, if not for their very existence, there must be not only the exactness of science, but also exactness or skill in the application of scientific principles throughout the whole processes, either of constructing machinery, or of transforming raw materials into finished fabrics. ”

“ Imitations of manufactured objects, drawing of cords, arrangement of fibres in a tissue, etc., are often suggested by the mode of manufacture of the decorated object—for example, in pottery by the impress of the woven basket which has served as a mould in the manufacture of the pot, etc. ”

“ In no single one of the works can we find that any fresh line was struck out or any important improvement made either in technique or in design. The products of these different factories are often to be distinguished only by the marks they bear, and these marks are as often as not forgeries. ”

“ Every discovery or new invention in whatever branch of industry it may be, is the property of the inventor, and its enjoyment is guaranteed to him in the form and for the time specified in the following articles. Art. 2. Every means of giving to a production already in existence a greater degree of perfection shall be considered as a new discovery. ”

“ The 'Art of Paper-making,' is in every respect a model of a text-book, either for a technical class or for the private student."—Paper and Printing Trades journal.
Leather Manufacture.
THE ART OF LEATHER MANUFACTURE. Being a Practical Handbook, in which the Operations of Tanning, Currying, and Leather Dressing are fully Described, and the Principles of Tanning Explained, and many Recent Processes Introduced; as also the Methods for the Estimation of Tannin, and a Description of the Arts of Glue Boiling, Gut Dressing, &c. By Alexander Watt, Author of "Soap-Making," &c. Second Edition. ”

“ The next stage in the progress of an invention, after the drawings are finished and the preliminary experiments have been made, if any such should be requisite, is the execution of the machine itself. ”

“ The need for rapid production accounts for the invention of so many machines. But it is not possible to secure the manufacture by rigid hands of iron of so many things at such speed, and at the same time to impart to them an exquisitely artistic appearance, revealing the personal excellence of the artist. ”

“ A very large quantity of work is now produced by the means we have stated, such as brooches, studs, locket-backs, earrings, rings, and an endless variety of other things; moreover, by the cultivation of this art a considerable amount of the labour formerly bestowed by hand upon the work is now saved, as the stamping in many instances is so complete, almost taking the form of a finished article after that process has been performed, that the workman has only to arrange the parts and supply the ornamentation when required, to render the article complete. ”

“ The work of the hand—as apart from that of the machine—is more and more in demand, and decorative needlework, even in our shops, is becoming more to be desired, for unique and personal characteristics and expression, than it has been for a very long period. ”

“ The methods of producing varieties of the metal suitable to the requirements of the engineer, foundryman and mechanician are described so that the worker may learn the history of the material he is handling. ”

“ And now that we have all the materials together to make an umbrella, let us go into a manufactory and see exactly how all the pieces are put together.
First, here is the stick, which must be “mounted.” By that you must understand that there are two springs to be put in, the ferule put on the top end, and if the handle is of other material than the stick, that must be put on.
The ugliest of all the work is the cutting of the slots in which the springs are put. These are first cut by a machine; but if the man who operates it is not careful, he will get some of his fingers cut off. ”

“ Where the faculty for art was special, it ought to be carried forward to the study of design, first in practical application to manufacture, then in higher branches of composition. The general principles of the application of art to manufacture should be explained in all cases, whether of special or limited faculty. ”

“ If this is not so; if the artistic conceptions of the present day in any of the textile or hardware manufactures now produced be satisfactory, why should there be this morbid appetite for new patterns and fashions in almost every branch of our manufactures, unless it be tacitly but universally acknowledged that they fail to be agreeable to the eye, or to satisfy the mind? ”