ELECTROTYPING.

This eminently useful application of the art of electrotyping originated with Volta, Cruickshank, and Wollaston about 1800 or 1801. In 1838, Spencer, of London, made casts of coins, and cast in intaglio from the matrices thus formed; in the same year Jacobi, of Dorpat, in Russia, made casts by electro deposit, which caused him to be put in charge of the work of gilding the dome of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg.

Electrotyping for the purposes of printing originated with Mr. Joseph A. Adams, a wood-engraver of New York, who made casts (1839-41) from wood-cuts, some engravings being printed from electrotype plates in the latter year. Many improvements in detail have been added since, in the processes as well as the appliances. Robert Murray introduced graphite as a coating for the form moulds. He first communicated his discovery to the Royal Institution of London, and afterward received a silver medal from the Society of Arts.

BLACKLEADING THE FORM.

The process of electrotyping is as follows: The form is locked up very tightly, and is then coated with a surface of graphite, commonly known as blacklead, but it is a misnomer. This is put on with a brush, and may be done very evenly and speedily by a machine in which the brush is reciprocated over the type by hand-wheel, crank, and pitman. A soft brush and very finely powdered graphite are used; the superfluous powder being removed, and the face of the type cleaned by the palm of the hand.

TAKING THE MOULD.

A shallow pan, known as a moulding pan, is then filled with melted yellow wax, making a smooth, even surface, which is blackleaded. The pan is then secured to the head of the press, and the form placed on the bed, which is then raised, delivering an impression of the type upon the wax.

The pan is removed from the head of the press, placed on a table, and then built up, as it is termed. This consists in running wax upon the portions where large spaces occur between type, in order that corresponding portions in the electrotype may not be touched by the inking roller, or touched by the sagging down of the paper in printing.

MAKING THE DEPOSIT.

The wax mould being built, is ready for blackleading, to give it a conducting surface upon which the metal may be deposited in the bath, superfluous blacklead being removed with a bellows. Blacklead, being nearly pure carbon, is a poor conductor, and a part of the metal of the pan is scraped clean, to form a place for the commencement of the deposit. The back of the moulding is waxed, to prevent deposit of copper thereon, and the face of the matrix is wetted to drive away all films or bubbles of air which may otherwise he attached to the blackleaded surface of the type.

The mould is then placed in the bath, containing a solution of sulphate of copper, and is made a part of an electric circuit, in which is also included the zinc element in the sulphuric-acid solution in the other bath. A film of copper is deposited on the blacklead surface of the mould; and when this shell is sufficiently thick, it is taken from the bath, the wax removed, the shell trimmed, the back tinned, straightened, backed with an alloy of type-metal, then shaved to a thickness, and mounted on a block to make it type-high.

A RECENT IMPROVEMENT

has been introduced in which there is added finely pulverized tin to the graphite for facing the wax mould; the effect in the sulphate of copper bath is to cause a rapid deposition of copper by the substitution of copper for the tin, the latter being seized by the oxygen, while the copper is deposited upon the graphite. The film is after increased by the usual means. Knight's expeditious process consists in dusting fine iron filings on the wet graphite surface of the wax mould, and then pouring upon it a solution of sulphate of copper. Stirring with a brush expedites the contact, and a decomposition takes place; the acid leaves the copper and forms with the iron sulphate a solution which floats off, while the copper is freed and deposited in a pure metallic form upon the graphite. The black surface takes on a muddy tinge with marvelous rapidity. The electric-connection gripper is designed to hold and sustain the moulding pan and make an electric connection with the prepared conducting pan of the mould only, while the metallic pan itself is out of the current of electricity, and receives no deposit.

BACKING-UP.

The thin copper-plate, when removed from the wax mould, is just as minutely correct in the lines and points as was the wax mould, and the original page of type. But it is obvious that the copper sheet is no use to get a print from. You must have something as solid as the type itself before it can be reproduced on paper. So a basis of metal is affixed to the copper film, and this again is backed up with wood thick enough to make the whole type-high. To get this, a man melts some tinfoil in a shallow iron tray, which he places on the surface of molten lead, kept to that heat in square tanks over ordinary fires. The tinfoil sticks to the back of the copper, and on the back of this is poured melted type-metal, until a solid plate has been formed, the surface of which is the copper facsimile and the body white metal. The electro metal plate, copper colored and bright on its surface, has now to go to the

FINISHING ROOM.

Here are two departments. In one the plates are shaved and trimmed down to fit the wood blocks, which are made in the other department. Some of these operations are done by hand, but it is very interesting to see self-working machines planing the sheets of metal to precisely the required thinness with mathematical exactness. A pointed tool is set to a certain pitch, and the plate of metal is made to revolve in such a way that one continuous curl shaving falls until the whole surface (back) has been planed perfectly true. The wood blocks are treated in the same way, after being sawn into the required sizes by a number of circular saws. Another set of workmen fit and join the metal to the wood, trim the edges, and turn the blocks out type-high and ready for working on the printing press.

A WET BLACKLEADING PROCESS.

In Messrs. Harper's establishment in New York, an improved wet process of blackleading is adopted. The wax mould is laid face upward on the floor of an inclosed box, and a torrent of finely pulverized graphite suspended in water is poured upon it by means of a rotary pump, a hose, and a distributing nozzle which dashes the liquid equally over the whole surface of the mould. Superfluous graphite is then removed by copious washing, an extremely fine film of graphite adhering to the wax. This answers a triple purpose; it coats the mould with graphite, wets it ready for the bath, and expels air bubbles from the letters. This process prevents entirely the circulation of blacklead in the air, which has heretofore been so objectionable in the process of electrotyping.

A NEW FOREIGN PROCESS.

The galvanoplastic process of M. Coblence for obtaining electrotypes of wood-engravings is as follows: A frame is laid upon a marble block, and then covered with a solution of wax, colophane, and turpentine. This mixture on the frame, after cooling, becomes hard, and presents a smooth, even surface. An engraved wooden block is then placed upon the surface of the frame, and subjected to a strong pressure. The imprint on matrix in cameo, having been coated with graphite, is then placed vertically in a galvanoplastic bath, and a cast, an exact reproduction of the wood-engraving, is obtained. The shell is then backed with type metal and finished in the usual way.—Printer and Stationer.