574 CALENDER 



them is smoothed, and even glazed, by their powerful pressure. It is employed either 

 to finish goods for the market, or to prepare cotton and woollen webs for tho calico 

 printer, by rendering their surfaces level, compact, and uniform. This condensation 

 and polish, or satinage as tho French call it, differ in degree according to the object 

 in view, and may be arranged in three different series: 1. For goods which are to 

 receive tho first impression by the block, a very strong pressure is required, for upon 

 the uniformity of tho polish the neatness and the regularity of the printing and the 

 correspondence of its members depend. 2. The pieces already dyed up at the madder- 

 bath, or otherwise, and which remain to be filled in with other colours, or grounded 

 in, as it is technically called, must receive a much less considerable gloss. 3. Tho 

 degree of glazing given to finished goods depends upon the taste of purchasers, and 

 the nature of the article ; but it is, in general, much less than for the first course of 

 block printing. 



The calico printers of Alsace employ an improved form of calender to that usually 

 employed in this country, which is the contrivance of M. Charles Dollfus. It is 

 described as possessing the following advantages : 1. It passes two pieces at once, 

 and thus does double the work of any ordinary machine. 2. It supersedes the neces- 

 sity of having a workman to fold up the goods, as they emerge from the calender 

 with the aid of a self-acting folder. 3. It receives, at pleasure, the finished pieces 

 upon a roller, instead of laying them in folds ; and, by a very simple arrangement, it 

 hinders the hands of the workman from being caught by the rollers. 



The most remarkable feature of M. Dollfus's machine is its being managed by a 

 single workman. Six or eight pieces are coiled upon the feed roller, and they are 

 neither pasted nor stitched together, but the ends are merely overlapped half a yard 

 or so. The workman is careful not to enter the second piece till one third or one 

 half of the first one has passed through on the other side, to prevent his being en- 

 grossed with two ends at a time. He must, no doubt, go sometimes to tho one side 

 and sometimes to the other of the machine to see that no folds or creases occur, and 

 to be ready for supplying a fresh piece as the preceding one has gone through. The 

 mechanism of the folder in the Alsace machine is truly ingenious : it performs ex- 

 tremely well, and saves an extra workman. The lapping-roller works by friction, 

 and does its duty better than similar machines guided by the hand. 



The numerous accidents which have happened to the hands of workmen engaged 

 in calenders should direct the attention towards an effective contrivance for preventing 

 such misfortunes. These various improvements in the Alsace machine may be easily 

 adapted to the ordinary calenders of almost every construction. 



The folder is a kind of cage in the shape of an inverted pyramid, shut on the four 

 sides, and open at top and bottom : the top orifice is about five inches, the bottom one 

 an inch and a half : the front and the back, which are about four feet broad, arc made 

 of tin plate or smooth pasteboard, and the two sides are made of strong sheet-iron, 

 the whole being bolted together by small bars of iron. Upon tho sheet-iron of the 

 sides, iron uprights are fixed, perforated with holes, through which tho whole cage is 

 supported freely by means of studs that enter into them. One of the uprights is 

 longer than the other, and bears a slot with a small knob, which, by means of the 

 iron piece, joins the guide to the crank of the cylinder, and thereby communicates to 

 the cage a see-saw movement : at the bottom extremity of the great upright there is a 

 piece of iron in the shape of an anchor, which may be raised, or lowered, or made 

 fast by screws. 



At the ends of this anchor are friction rollers, which may be drawn out or pushed 

 back and fixed by screws : these rollers lift alternately two levers made of wood, and 

 fixed to a wooden shaft. 



The paws are also made of wood : they serve to lay down alternately the piles of 

 the cloth which passes upon the cage, and is folded zigzag upon the floor, or upon a 

 board set below the cage ; a motion imparted by tho see-saw motion of the cage itself. 



To protect the fingers of the workmen, above the small plate of the spreading-board 

 or bar, there is another bar, which forms with the former an angle of about 75 : they 

 come sufficiently near together for the opening at tho summit of the angle to allow 

 the cloth to pass through, but not the fingers. See Bulktin de la Soci&tb Industrielle 

 de Mulhausen, No. 18. 



It is not thought necessary to give a drawing of the calender usually employed 

 in this country; a few remarks may not, however, be out of place. The iron 

 rollers are made hollow for the purpose of admitting either a hot roller of iron, 

 or steam, when hot calendering is required. The other cylinders used formerly 

 to be made of wood, but it was liable to many defects. The advantage of the paper 

 roller consists of its being devoid of any tendency to split, crack, or warp, especially 

 when exposed to a considerable heat from the contact and pressure of the hot iron 

 rollers. The paper, moreover, takes a vastly finer polish, and being of an elastic 



