CALICO-PRINTING 607 



Castleton Print Works, and is employed in printing very beautiful floral patterns on 

 woollen fabrics, in imitation of those produced by hand-labour in France. 



352 



The general course of printing is thus performed : The pieces to be printed are 

 wound on a beam, and, last of all, a few yards of common coarse cotton or calico, 

 kept for this purpose : this is for the printer to fit the pattern on, to save good cloth. 

 The roll of cloth being put in its place behind the machine, the printer's assistant 

 stations himself behind to guide the cloth evenly, and pluck off any loose threads he 

 may see. The machine printer stands in front, and, after having fitted the pattern 

 on the cloth, attends to supplying the colour boxes with colour, and regulating any 

 misfitting or inequality in the printing. The machine then prints rapidly. After 

 running through 30 or 40 pieces, the printer stops the machine, removes the doctors, 

 and files them anew to a bevelled sharp edge. 



To prevent the blanket being too soon soiled, it is usual to run grey or unbleached 

 pieces between the blanket and the white pieces. The blanket, grey, and printed 

 pieces are dried separately. There are several ways of drying after the machine. 

 In the early days of machine-printing, the ' hot room ' behind the machine was heated 

 by a cast-iron furnace, termed the ' pot,' -which was kept red-hot or nearly so, and 

 large cast-iron pipes formed the flue, which after traversing the hot room, delivered 

 the ' smoke, &c. into a chimney. This arrangement gave way to cylinders, similar 

 to those used in drying machines and were also employed in conjunction -with the 

 steam-chests hereinafter described for drying the printed cloth as well as the grey 

 or intermediate cloth and the blanket,, but experience having shown that many 

 colours and mordants are injured by the sudden drying given by the cylinders, 

 these have been pretty generally abandoned in favour of steam-chests, in drying 

 with -which, the printed cloth does not absolutely touch the heated surface, but 

 keeps moving on in very close proximity, the cylinders where they are retained being 

 reserved for the ' grey ' and the blanket. One of the most recent arrangements only, 

 is shown infg. 353, being that of Messrs. Mather and Platt ; A, the printing-machine 

 with copper rollers, (an 8-colour machine here shown) ; B, place of steam-engine 

 to drive the machine ; c, white cloth to bo printed, running from batch through 

 machine, and thence to drying apparatus ; D, grey or intermediate cloth ; E blanket or 

 back-cloth ; F, framing of apparatus for supporting and carrying the rollers and steam- 

 chests ; G, hollow steam-chests or chambers, the same width as the machine, about 1 

 foot broad and 3 or 4 inches deep, and connected with one another by bent pipes ai 

 the end ; H, upright with tightening trough apparatus for blanket ; i, upright with 



