A set of blocks or types properly devised, are produced for printing the different pips of hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs, or they are drawn, as other subjects, in the usual way upon stone. The ink or colour, whether black or red, is to be prepared from the best French lamp-black, or the best Chinese vermillion ground in oil, and laid on the types and blocks, or on the stone, in the same way as printers’ ink, and the impressions taken-on to thick drawing paper by means of a suitable press in the ordinary manner of printing.
The picture or court-cards are to be produced by a series of impressions in different colours, fitting into each other exactly in the same way as in printing paper hangings, or silks and calicoes, observing that all the colours are to be prepared with oil.
For this purpose a series of blocks or types are to be provided for each subject, and which, when put together, will form the whole device. These blocks are to be used separately, that is, all the yellow parts of the picture, for instance, are to be printed at one impression, then all the red parts, next all the flesh colour, then the blue portions, and so on, finishing with the black outlines, which complete the picture.
If the same is to be done by lithography, there must be as many stones as there are to be colours, each to print its portion only; and the impression, or part of the picture given by one stone, must be exactly fitted into by the impression given from the next stone, and so on until the whole subject is complete.
A superior kind of card is proposed to be made, with gold or silver devices in parts of the pictures, or gold or silver borders round the pips. This is to be effected by printing the lines which are to appear as gold or silver, with gilders’ size, in place of ink or colour; and immediately after the impression has been given, the face of the card is to be powdered over with gold dust, silver, or bronze, by means of a soft cotton or wool dabber, by which the gold, silver, or bronze will be made to adhere to the picture, and the superfluous portions of the metal will wipe off by a very slight rubbing. When the prints are perfectly dry, the face of the card may be polished by means of a soft brush.
If it should be desirable to make these improved cards to resemble ivory, that may be done by preparing the face of the paper in the first instance with a composition of size and fine French white, and a drying oil, mixed together to about the consistence of cream; this is to be washed over the paper, and dried before printing, and when the cards are finished, they will exactly resemble ivory.
The only thing remaining to be described, is the means by which the successive impressions of the types, blocks, or stones forming the parts of the pictures, are to be brought exactly to join each other, so as to form a perfect whole design when complete; this is by printers called registering, and is to be effected much in the usual way, by points in the tympan of the press, or by marks upon the stones.
The parts of the subject having been all accurately cut or drawn to fit, small holes are to be made with a fine awl through a quire or more of the paper at once, by placing upon the paper a gauge-plate, having marks or guide-holes, and by observing these, the same sheet laid on several times, and always made to correspond with the points or marks, the several parts of the picture must inevitably register, and produce a perfect subject.
CARD CUTTING. Mr. Dickinson’s patent machine for cutting cards, consists of a pair of rollers with circular revolving cutters, the edges of which are intended to act against each other as circular shears, and the pasteboards in passing between these rollers are cut by the circular shears into cards of the desired dimensions. These rollers are mounted in suitable standards, with proper adjustments, and are made to revolve by a band and pulley connected to the axle of a crank, or by any other convenient means.