A NEW INVENTION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3231, 7 November 1881, Page 4

A NEW INVENTION.

The Sydney Morning Herald states that an invention which is likely to prove of considerable practical importance has just been perfected by Mr Jackson, foreman of the mechanical department of the Government printing department. The object of the invention is to enable copies to be printed of diagrams, &c, without the necessity of engraving them on wood, so that they can be put in a form and worked off with ordinary leiter-press. The process consists in coating a plate of metal with a composition somewhat similar to what is used for etching. The drawing or dineram to be copied is placed upon this, nnd the lines are traced over with a metal style, so as to mark a copy of the design upon the composition. The lines are afterwards cut. deeper so as to reach the surface of the metal plate, leaving the lines of the diagam impressed in intaglio. An electrotype cast is taken of this, which gives a reversed copy of the design in relief, and which is used to print from just as ordinary type would be used. The great advantage of this method is the speed with which it can be executed, as all the time required for drawing the reversed design upon wood and then engraving it is saved. There is a further advantage of the process in the fact that lettering, which is always expensive to engraTe, can be impressed upon the wax by means of ordinary type, and copied with Celerity aa well as despatch. In many inBtances plans and diagrams to accompany Parliamentary papers, which under ordinary circumstances would have to be photolithographed can he copied by this process at a minimum expenditure of time and cost.