'The Manufacture of Wall Paper', 1877

Last month I was invited to co-teach a workshop on historical blockprinted papers at North Bennet Street School in Boston. While the practical instruction and work centered on design, carving, and printing of linoblocks, we kicked off the weekend with a discussion on the development of paper decoration techniques in Europe in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, beginning with the movement of blockprinting on textiles from China, Japan, India, and Africa into Germany, were the industry flourished in 17th c. Augsburg. As hinted at by the generic German term "kattunpapier" [calico paper], early flocked, gilt, and large-scale blockprinted papers saw a large market as cheaper alternative to damask and brocade wall hangings—certainly a larger portion of the market than those used for books. This connection between book papers and wall papers extended well into the 19th century, and while the industrialization and mechanization of these trades prompted further specialization between them, these later techniques are still a part of the blockprinting continuum, and offer insights on how some of the endpapers and wrappers on this website might've been accomplished.

When I returned from Boston, a mailer tube was sitting outside my door, containing a recently purchased issue of Scientific American from October 13, 1877, with a front page article and illustration dedicated to the improved method of roller-printing wallpapers. While authored by a wallpaper production company and clearly influenced by a general spirit of technological revolution, the article touches lucidly on a number of techniques and materials used in the production of Victorian-era block- and roller-printed papers. It appears to be paywalled through a couple of the usual avenues (in spite of being out of copyright), so I've typed it up here for our enjoyment:

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

A Weekly Journal of Practical Information, Art, Science, Mechanics, Chemistry, and Manufactures.

Vol. XXXVII. — No. 15. [New Series]

New York, October 13, 1877.

$3.20 per Annum. [Postage Prepaid.]

The Manufacture of Wall Paper.

The use of paper as a covering for walls originated in China. It was introduced in Europe as a substitute for tapestry hangings—whence the term paper hangings—by the French. At the present time, owing to the improvements which have been effected in printing, and the wide range of colors open to the artist designer, if offers probably the cheapest and most ornate means of mural decoration.

The blank paper is received by the manufacturer in the long rolls made by the Fourdinier machine, and weighing from 80 to 85 lbs. to the roll. It varies in quality according to the printing and finishing which it is to receive—weighing 9, 10, 12, and 14 ounces to the length of eight yards, which constitutes the usual length of the roll as sold at retail. The first process undergone is termed

"Grounding"

and the object is to give the paper the requisite body to enable it to receive the colored pattern. The grounding machine is represented in Fig. 1. While passing over a roller the paper is covered with a mixture of so-called Jersey clay, which contains some 18 per cent of alumina, glue, and water, and if the surface is to be finally polished—or satin finished—a percentage of lard oil is added. After the mixture is

applied it is evenly distributed over the paper, first by two reciprocating brushes, then by a rotating brush roller, and lastly by two brushes like the first. It then is conducted up between endless belts across which sticks are laid, and over which sticks the paper is suspended in festoons. The sticks are so placed that a length of paper measuring just four yards hangs between any two. The belts are kept in constant motion, and the paper is thus conducted along the loft, which measures some 160 feet in length. Steam coils are placed beneath the belts, and a temperature of 120° maintained. About nine minutes are occupied by any one festoon of paper in making the journey from grounding machine to the point where it is again made into a roll, and during this period it becomes thoroughly dried. Frequently coloring matter is mixed with the ground paint, and the paper is thus given a flat tint, which forms a background for the pattern, or which is left unaltered when the paper is meant to be perfectly plain and to resemble paint or kalsomine when attached to the wall.

Imprinting the Pattern by Blocks

is done in two ways, either by the block or old process, or by the roller or improved process. In either case each color entering into the design must be printed separately, so that there must necessarily be as many blocks or types prepared as there are tints in the pattern. The blocks are constructed of two layers of wood, a thin piece of maple fastened to a thicker backing of pine board. Each block is about 26 inches wide, two feet long, and an inch and a half to two inches in thickness. On the maple all of the design to be printed in a single color is drawn and afterwards cut out by engravers, so that the lines are in high relief. The more delicate figuring is not made in the wood, but is supplied be the insertion of best pieces of brass, as we shall explain more fully in referring to the manufacture of the printing rollers further on. When the wood carving is completed, the work is brushed over with boiled oil, and when dry sent to the printer for use. The workman stands before a table, Fig. 2, over which passes the paper.

Hanging above the table, supported by an India rubber cord, is the block. The upper end of the cord is attached to a small wheel traveling on an iron guide, so that the block may be swung from the table over to the place where it receives its covering of color. This last is obtained from what is termed the "slush box," which consists of a shallow box, the bottom of which is covered with painted ticking. This box floats on a mixture of water and paper pulp contained in a larger box, so that its bottom is always perfectly level. The workman first places the paper across his table, then swings the block over to the slush box and brings its carved side down on the paint. Next, he carries the block back again and places it on the paper, of course using great care in the registering, so that the impression may fall exactly on the right place. A vertical movable arm attached to a frame above is now rested upon the back of the block, and forced down by a lever worked by the foot of the operator. This process is repeated until the whole piece is covered with the pattern, when it is hung up until perfectly dry. Hand printing is now used on borders where there are many colors, and in the finer qualities of decorated paper, where the care requisite for printing the numerous tints can scarcely be exercised during the motion of the rapid working cylinder machines. In

Roller Printing

the impression is obtained from a series of rollers, on the surface of which the design is raised. This process is used for all the cheaper grades, and hence for very much the greater proportion of all the wall paper manufactured. The rollers are of maple lined interiorly with brass. Four different sizes are used, measuring respectively 13, 16, 18 1/2, and 22 inches in circumference. Their width in all cases is 18 1/2 inches. The pattern of the design is first drawn on paper and transferred upon the rollers, each roller

printing, as before stated, only such portions as are of one particular hue. Unlike that of the blocks described above, the surface of the roller is not engraved away, but the pattern is made by driving in pieces of thin brass, which the workman, Fig. 3, bends in a vise so as to correspond with the lines of the pattern. Where there is a considerable area to be printed "solid," its outlines are raised in brass, and inside the metal boundaries thus made is packed glued felt. In some cases where the paper is not grounded rollers are covered entirely with felt with the exception of such portions representing the pattern as are intended to be left white. After the design is thus produced the roller is placed in a lathe, fixed in a slide rest of which a vertical file which smooths the surface, or if the roller be entirely felted it is submitted, when the glue in the felt is dry, to the action of an emery wheel.

The printing machine consists of a large cylinder or drum around which the paper passes. While being thus carried the paper receives an impression from each roller in turn, the rollers being disposed around the periphery of the cylinder. Each roller is supplied with color by an endless belt of felt, which passes down into a receptacle filled with the paint. If the paper is striped the colors are blended by dry paint brushes held in contact with the surface as the cylinder rotates. In the large illustration on the first page a 12 roller machine is represented. This prints therefore twelve colors at once.

If, however, the paper is to be satin finished, before the above operation takes place it is put through a polishing machine shown in Fig. 4. This consists of a central rotation brush against which the paper is carried by several metal cylinders. The alumina and oil in the groundwork admit of its being finely polished. The printed pattern is, however, in dead color, so that when the paper is finished some portions have luster while others do not, thus adding to the detail of the ornamentation.

As the printed sheet emerges from the machine, it is led over sticks on endless belts the same as before described during the grounding process. An ingenious device is employed for placing the sticks under the paper, which is represented in Fig. 5. At the ends of the roller over which the endless belt, A, passes, are two cams, one of which is shown at B. Above the cams and rest on their periphery is a pile of sticks, C. The cam shoulder equals in height the thickness of one stick. Hence at each revolution of the cam a stick is moved from the bottom of the pile and carried down on and across the belts. Between the latter comes the paper, D, which thus falls in folds over the sticks as they are laid in place.

After the paper has been carried on the belts to the end of the loft (becoming dried meanwhile) its end is connected to a swiftly rotating horizontal spindle which winds it into tight rolls. These measure but 8 yards in length, the sheet being cut by the attendant as soon as a mark placed by the printing machine comes to the spindle. If the paper is to be embossed this is now done by passing it between engraved metal rollers. Nothing further then remains but to send it to the markets.

The Coloring Material

is made of ordinary dry pigments combined with the Jersey clay and gum substitute. This last is produced from potatoes, large quantities of which are raised for this especial purpose. The tubers are simply dried and ground, the powder forming when mixed with water and extremely adhesive size. Sometimes ordinary glue size is employed. Paris green and the arsenical colors are now rapidly going out of use in paper coloring, chrome green being utilized in preference to the former.

We have obtained the material for this article and the annexed engravings from Messrs. Christy, Shepherd & Garrett the proprietors of one of the largest wall paper factories in the country. The establishment is located at No. 510 West 23d street in this city; 125 workmen and 13 large printing machines are here employed, producing six million rolls of paper per year.