The Useful Arts Employed in the Construction of Dwelling Houses. Second Edition

by Anonymous

It will be interesting to give a brief description of the mode of making, or rather printing, paper-hangings, before we speak of the employment of the paper-hanger; for all that devolves upon him is to fix up the paper when printed.

The paper employed is a sort of cartoon or cartridge paper manufactured for the purpose,—rough, but strong. Until recently, every piece of such paper was stamped, and the excise duty paid on it, before the process of printing commenced.

In general, the paper is printed in “distemper,” that is, in colours mixed with melted size, but sometimes in varnish. The pigments or colouring substances employed, are principally these:—Red or crimson,—lake, vermilion, rose-pink, and red ochre:—Blue,—Prussian blue, verditer, and indigo:—Yellow,—Dutch pink, yellow ochre, and chrome yellow:—Green,—verdigris, and various mixtures of the blues and yellows just mentioned:—Orange,—vermilion, or red lake, mixed with Dutch pink:—Purple,—a wash made of logwood, and various mixtures of lake with Prussian blue, or with indigo:—Black,—ivory black and lamp black:—White,—whiting and white lead. There are other substances occasionally used, according as improvements or discoveries are made in the manufacture of colours; but various combinations of those which we have mentioned will yield almost every tint that can be desired.

These colours are mixed with water, together with a little size or gum, by which the colours are made adhesive without being too stiff for working. If the paper is to be glossy when completed, or if any one of the colours with which it is printed is desired to be glossy, the pigment for that colour is mixed with oil of turpentine and certain gums and resins which will give a glossy surface to the paint when dry. Before the printing commences, the piece of paper (which is about twelve yards long) is coated all over with that colour which is to form the ground. Powdered whiting is mixed with melted size to a proper consistence, and laid on with a large brush, in the same manner as a ceiling is whitewashed: the piece of paper is then left to dry. If the ground is to be white, nothing more is required before the printing; but if it is to be coloured, a second ground is laid on, made of melted size, and of such colouring substances as will give the required tint: this, when dry, is the ground which is to receive the ornamental pattern. If the ground is to be glossy, the colouring substance is mixed with varnish, gum, resin, &c., instead of size and water.

When the ground is thoroughly dried, the device is laid upon it, and this is, in most cases, done by a process almost exactly corresponding with wood-cut printing, in the fine arts. An impression is taken from wooden blocks, which are cut in such a manner that the figure to be expressed is made to project from the surface, by cutting away all the other parts. But this raised device only represents that portion of the whole figure which is to be of one colour; so that if the pattern is to be ultimately represented in four colours, as is frequently the case, there must be four differently-carved blocks or stamps to represent these, and the blocks must be so carefully carved with reference to one another, that though the sizes of them are all exactly alike, the devices occupy different parts, and do not interfere with one another: the whole beauty and correctness of the figures depend on the accuracy with which the blocks are carved.

Suppose, now, that the paper is properly painted with the ground colour, dried and spread out on a flat board,—the carved blocks ready for use,—and the colours mixed and melted in a warm state,—the process is then conducted as follows. A piece of leather or of oilskin is stretched over a flat block, and a boy lays a coating of one of the colours to be used—say green—on the leather, with a brush. A man then takes that one of the carved blocks which is to stamp the green part of the device, and lays it down flat on the wet colour, by which a coating is transferred to all the raised parts of the block. This is then stamped down, with a firm and steady pressure, upon the piece of paper, by which the green device is permanently impressed. As the carved block is only large enough to stamp a small portion at a time, an adjoining portion of the long piece of paper is taken,—a fresh coating of colour laid on the leather by the boy,—this coating again transferred to the carved block,—and again from thence to the paper. This continues until the whole length of the paper is printed with the green device, care being taken that the different impressions shall accurately join one another at the proper parts.

The paper is then laid aside to dry, and preparations are made for printing the second colour upon it.

Let us suppose this colour to be pink. The proper ingredients are mixed with size, and melted, and a coating of this laid on a block covered with leather, as in the former case. The proper carved block is then taken, and an impression stamped by its means in precisely the same manner as before, with the exception of the colour being pink instead of green. But in laying the wet stamp on the piece of paper, great care is requisite in adjusting the two colours so that they shall not interfere with each other:—for instance, if the green represents leaves and the pink represents flowers, it is important that the pink should not, by a misadjustment of the second stamp, go over a part already occupied by green, so as to give a confused mixture of green leaf and pink flower at the same spot. If we closely examine the pattern of paper-hangings on the walls of our rooms, particularly the inferior papers, we shall frequently see instances of the bad adjustment to which we here allude.

The pink stamping proceeds from end to end of the piece of paper, until the whole is done; after which it is laid aside to dry. A process precisely similar in every respect is followed with all the subsequent colours, be they few or many. The more complicated the figure is, or the greater the number of colours it contains, the greater is the degree of care required in impressing the successive colours on the papers. In order that no time should be lost, directly the workman has taken a supply of colour on to his block, the boy lays on another coating on the leather. Indeed, the whole process very much resembles the rudest kind of printing, with the exception of the use of different colours.

The description we have here given is such as will afford a general idea of the nature of the process. Various improvements have been from time to time introduced for facilitating the printing; but it is hardly necessary to dwell upon them.