Cal′ico Printing. The art of producing figured patterns upon calico by means of dyes and mordants topically applied by wooden blocks, copper plates, or engraved cylinders. The goods are either directly printed in colour, or receive their patterns by being run through
a colouring matter or mordant, when the dye is only produced upon that portion of the ground previously prepared for it. Of late this system of dyeing has been extended to silk and woollens.
The mordants are thickened with some glutinous substance, as flour, starch, or gum, to render them adhesive and to prevent their spreading.
The following are the principal styles of calico-printing, each requiring a different method of manipulation:—
In the madder, fast colour, or chintz style, the mordants are applied to the white cloth, and the colours are brought out in the dye bath. This is the method commonly followed for “permanent prints.”
In the padding or plaquage style, the whole cloth is passed through a bath of some particular mordant, and different mordants are afterwards printed on it before submitting it to the dye bath. By this means the colour of the ground and pattern is varied. Like the last, it is much used for gown pieces, &c.
In the reserve or resist-paste style, white or coloured figures are produced by covering those parts with a composition which resists the general dye afterwards applied to form the ground of the pattern. In this style the dye bath is indigo, or some other substantive colour.
The discharge, or rongeant style, is the reverse of the preceding; it exhibits bright figures on a dark ground, which are produced by printing with acidulous or discharge mordants after the cloth has been passed through the colouring bath.
Steam-colour printing consists in printing the calico with a mixture of dye extracts and mordants, and afterwards exposing it to the action of steam.
Spirit-colour printing is a method by which brilliant colours are produced by a mixture of dye extracts and solution of tin, called by the dyers “spirits of tin.”