How Paper Boxes Are Made / A practical and instructive book telling how the beginner may manufacture all kinds of paper boxes, with special chapters on the printing department for paper box plants, embossing, gold-leafing, label work, etc.

by Robert F. Salade

Cold embossing means simply that no heat is applied to the embossing plates.

The embossing plate, or female die, is usually made of brass, and it contains an intaglio reproduction of the printed subject which is to be embossed. When the embossing plate is to be used on a platen press in the same way as a form of type, the plate is made type-high and is locked up in a chase with furniture and quoins in the usual manner. When the embossing plate is to be attached to a patented base, like the Hartford Electric Heater, the plate is not made type-high, but just high enough to allow for the thickness of the patented base.

MAKING THE MALE DIE, OR COUNTER DIE, FOR EITHER
HOT OR COLD EMBOSSING

The male die, or counter die, for either hot or cold embossing, is made in the same way, as follows:

First, the inking rollers are removed from the press. A regular embossing press, of course, has no inking rollers.

Second, the chase (or patented base) containing the female die is placed on the press. If an electric heater is used, the electric current is turned on immediately so that the embossing plate will become heated while the counter die is being made.

Third, all tympan sheets are removed from the platen of the press, and in place of these a sheet of straw-board or news-board, about one inch larger on all four edges than the sheet that is to be embossed, is glued to the surface of the platen with LePage glue.

Both platen printing presses and regular embossing presses of the Hartford or John Thomson type have removable steel platen plates which are used for either cutting and creasing work, or embossing work. The counter die is made ready on the platen plate instead of being made ready directly on the platen of the press. When printing is done on a Hartford or John Thomson press—a printing press—the steel platen plate (held by counter-sunk screws) is removed.

On all other platen printing presses there is no removable steel platen plate, and when cutting and creasing, or embossing, is to be done, the counter die is made directly on the platen.

In all cases of cutting and creasing, or embossing, a sheet of straw-board or news-board is glued to either the platen of the press, or to the steel platen plate, as the case may be. The counter die is then constructed on this sheet of straw-board or news-board.