Patent Model for an Electrotype Printing block for Textile Printing

Crossley, Thomas · ca 1859

This patent model demonstrates an invention for an electrotype printing block which was granted patent number 25954. Common textile printing blocks were made of wood. The wooden blocks gave trouble when wet, and their inclined walls tended to spread the color and broaden lines in printing fabric. This patent covered a method of making metal printing blocks with high vertical walls. Matrices were first constructed of numerous pieces of rectangular type of different lengths, then molded in wax, and finally electrotyped.