Tracing paper

“ A suspicion is a prejudgment, and may prove a hindrance to correct reasoning. Not entirely satisfied, therefore, I took the next step. A tracing can be made in either of two ways: with a lead-pencil, or with a stylus of glass or agate. The former leaves a deposit of the lead, whilst the latter makes an indentation upon the paper. In the first case the forger will attempt to [Pg 332] remove the lead with an erasing rubber, but will not succeed thoroughly, because some of it will be covered by the ink, and because of the danger of injuring the surface of the paper. ”

“ A much less expensive mode of obtaining tracing paper is to make it one’s self. Common silk or tissue paper may be purchased in quantities at less than a halfpenny a sheet of the ordinary size. This may be prepared by placing a single sheet at a time flat upon a board or other smooth horizontal surface, and applying a mixture of boiled linseed oil and turpentine. ”

“ Tracing can only be employed when a signature or writing is present in the exact or approximate form of the desired reproduction. It may then be done by placing the writing to be forged upon a transparency over a strong light, and then superimposing the paper upon which the forgery is to be made. The outline of the writing underneath will then appear sufficiently plain to enable it to be traced with pen or pencil, so as to produce a very accurate copy upon the superimposed paper. If the outline is with a pencil, it is afterward marked over with ink. ”

“ Before removing the thumb tacks entirely, lift the tracing paper and examine whether the design has been thoroughly transferred.
In using transfer paper be careful about using a new piece on handsome goods as the color comes off in undesirable places.
When possible, it is far better, however, to draw your pattern directly on the material, sketching it at first lightly and when all is correct, going over the lines with either India ink, or with a common pen and ink.
For very handsome material, it is safer and more convenient to have the stamping done by those who make a business of it. ”

“ When the tracing is fixed in its proper position by a touch of gum or paste at the upper corners, slip the transfer paper, with the chalked side [Pg xviii] downwards, between the vellum and the tracing, and tack down the bottom corners of the tracing in the same way, to prevent shifting. Seated at a firm table or desk of a convenient height, with the strained paper or drawing board slightly on an incline, the amateur may consider all ready for work. All the lines of the tracing are first to be gone over with the tracing point, or a very hard pencil cut sharp will answer the purpose. ”

“ Large tracings present the greatest difficulties as the paper stretches very much and, on account of its delicacy, is not easily manipulated and is liable to crease. Such work requires several hands. It is necessary to have clear paste, quite free from knots, which has been thinned to the consistency of thick pea-soup. When at all practicable, the tracing itself is pasted twice, the first pasting will make the paper stretch and the second ensures a proper coating of paste. ”

“ You must be careful not to press your fingers on the drawing, for it often causes the deposit of powder to be of the same color as your transferring paper, which spoils the result and prevents careful painting. Before finishing all the work, lift up a corner of the overlying paper to see if the tracing does mark. It will be but an affair of habit to trace well, for it is by experiments frequently repeated that one comes to know exactly the amount of strength to be used so that the transferring paper may mark sufficiently. ”

“ In copying from a tracing, it is well to put a sheet of drawing paper underneath the tracing, for it not only shows up the lines more distinctly, but it prevents the dividers from tearing the drawing while taking off measurements.
Before commencing a drawing, a cutting-off line should be drawn all round the sheet clear of the glued portion. The portions outside of this line are useful to try the drawing pen upon before drawing a line, or for trying a tint when colouring. Care should be taken not to leave too narrow a margin, for nothing detracts more from the appearance of a good drawing. ”

“ Creasing from defects of the machine, make-ready, or printing surface must not be visited upon the papermaker. If the paper will not respond to exposure to air, feeding the narrow way of the sheet may overcome the difficulty, or, if the size of the machine permits it, cutting the paper in half and rearranging the forme or other printing surface and putting on an extra feeder.
Art and other coated papers which have the coating fixed to the paper with glue in addition to the liability to wavy edges, may be troublesome by reason of the surface lifting or picking. ”

“ To prepare by floating, pour the solution in a shallow tray, which needs not to be more than 20×34 inches, 30 inches being the width of the drawing paper usually employed; then roll the paper and place it on the solution. Now, taking hold of it by two corners, draw it out slowly: the paper will unroll by itself. This operation can be done by diffused daylight, but, of course, the paper should be dried in a dark room. It dries rapidly. Endless rolls are prepared by machinery. To expose, the drawing is placed in the printing frame, face downwards, and the sensitive paper laid over it. ”

“ Papers which are loose in texture are usually soft-sized, and thus, having comparatively little size to hold the fibres together, will give off fluff or dust, consisting of small fibres, as soon as the paper is subjected to friction, even of the lightest description. Such paper in its passage through the printing machine gradually deposits its fibrous dust upon the printing surface, the rollers take it from there to the ink distributing surface, and the whole of the inking and printing becomes foul. ”

“ It is hard to believe that a machine can do all these things so quickly and so accurately.
“When the linotype work is completed the printer places the lines of type on a ‘galley.’ Then the type is covered with ink, a piece of paper is laid on, and a heavy roller passed over it. This impression is called the ‘galley proof.’ If the linotyper has made any mistakes in spelling or printing, they have to be corrected.
“After the ‘galley proofs’ are corrected, the dummy—a blank-page book just the size the magazine will be—is made. ”

“ The behaviour of papers when damped is a peculiarity well known to paper-makers and printers. For certain purposes it is desirable that paper should not show any material alteration when damped, since any expansion of the sheet is liable to throw the printing out of “register.” The liability of papers to such stretch or expansion is largely minimised by careful manipulation of the pulp during the process of beating, and also by a proper regulation of the web of paper as it passes from the wet end of the paper machine over the drying cylinders to the calenders. ”

“ To successfully raise a check or draft requires so much less skill or art than to accomplish a forgery that it has of late become alarmingly prevalent. Often where a check or draft is printed on ordinary paper the original figures are removed by some chemical process so skilfully that no alteration can be detected, even with a strong magnifying glass.
It is not uncommon, when filling up checks or drafts, to take another pen, and with red ink write the amount across the face of the paper, and again make the figures in and through the signature. ”

“ Sheets containing such defects sometimes elude the finishers, and on the printing-press such a sheet may crack and go around one of the ink rollers. On a web press the trouble from such a defect would be even worse, causing breaks and necessitating delays on the press. It is more difficult to exclude calender cuts from roll paper, as it is not always easy to see them in the fast-running paper, so that an occasional cut is not an unforgivable sin. ”

“ As a rule, however, it is preferable to use only one drop of a reagent, and to follow closely under a low power of the microscope, its action, both upon the material of paper and upon the ink of any writing, which it may render visible.
The detection of mechanical erasure, which as was mentioned above, is frequently indicated by the paper being thinner and more transparent at that place, is often rendered more certain by photography. ”

“ The object of beating is to reduce the bleached pulp to fibres, and to reduce the length of the fibre in accordance with the requirements of the paper to be made. The rags are chosen according to the class of paper desired—softer rags for soft papers, and, of course, stronger rags for strong papers. For blottings, filter papers, and lithographic papers, soft rags, sharp beater knives, quick beating are adopted. For dense, hard papers, such as ledger, type-writing, bank, imitation parchment papers, duller knives, slow beating, with a gradual lowering of the beater roll is the order. ”

“ A review of the various processes for treatment of paper in pulp or when finished, demonstrates that time, money and study has been devoted to the production of a REAL safety paper. Some compositions and processes have in a measure been successful. It is found, however, that the ingenuity of those evil-minded persons, to the detection of whose efforts to alter the writing in documents this class of invention has more particularly been directed, finds a ready way of removing in some cases the evidence which the chemical reagent furnishes. ”

“ When the galley becomes filled it is "locked up"—an operation made plain by our illustration—and "proofs" taken. This is done by "inking" the type by means of a roller, then placing a sheet of damped paper upon it and passing a heavy iron roller, surrounded by a "blanket," over it.
The proof is then sent to the proof-reader, who goes over it carefully, comparing it with the copy, which is read aloud to him by the "copy-holder." Any corrections to be made are indicated by certain hieroglyphical marks, which, with slight variations, are recognized by printers everywhere. ”

“ In various coated papers sheets with uneven coating or surface markings should not be included as "good" paper. A paper which is even in texture cannot be considered matched by a supply which is "wild" or cloudy in the look-through. Although wildness is sometimes accompanied by strength in paper, this is not always so, and it is desirable that printing papers should not be wild.
To analyse papers in order to discover chemical residues and to identify them requires some very delicate tests, and unless one has had an extensive chemical training, mistaken conclusions may result. ”

“ Receiving these, I submitted them to various wary and knowing printers, in order to find out at what office in the city the printing was probably done. A printer or newspaper man will ordinarily detect, by the size of column, or some other peculiarity, from what paper a given extract has been clipped, as readily as a tailor can tell from whose shop a certain coat or pair of pantaloons came, or as easily as a man can distinguish the handwriting of his friends. ”

“ China clay, having no cohesion, does not assist in felting the paper in any way, but tends to weaken its resistance to wear. That weakness or tenderness is one feature of imitation art papers. After leaving the paper machine the paper is super-calendered, receiving a water finish, that is, the paper is just wetted on the surface immediately before entering the rolls of the calender. The loading is thus brought to the surface, and a very smooth level sheet is produced, only a little inferior, as a printing surface, to art paper. ”

“ A photographic printing frame with a black disc on plain glass is a convenient method of testing, and if, after forty-eight hours in summer, and a proportionately longer period at other times, the difference between the exposed and protected areas is marked, the paper must not be used where a permanent colour is required. Some tints will bleach completely with the treatment, and should be avoided as stock lines. To test water-fastness a piece of paper is left in warm water, or placed in cold water and heated slowly. If the colour is soluble it will very soon tint the water. ”

“ A few high-class mills are responsible for machine-made drawings similar in furnish and finish to those made by hand. Engine-sized drawing papers are more like cartridge papers, but some of the cheaper varieties resemble thick toned printings. Cartridge papers are made from long-fibred stuff which is only partly bleached. Some cartridges are tub-sized, and the papers serve as substitutes for drawing papers. Being very strong they make excellent cover papers for books and lists of various kinds. Crayon papers are coloured or tinted drawing papers used for crayon and water-colour work. ”

“ The forged print is not an absolute facsimile of the true print. There is a slight discrepancy. But, in addition to this, the paper bears intrinsic evidence that the thumb-print on it is a forgery."
"We will consider that evidence presently, Dr. Thorndyke. To return to the possibility of forging a finger-print, can you explain to us, without being too technical, by what methods it would be possible to produce such a stamp as you have referred to?" ”