WEAVING DESIGNS by PHOTOGRAPHY

Progress, Volume I, Issue 2, 1 December 1905, Page 31

WEAVING DESIGNS by PHOTOGRAPHY

A great many marvellous inventions have been accredited to Herr Jan Szczepanik who was born in a small village in Galicia some 32 years ago. His first invention was a wonderful process, by which one's photograph might be woven in silk almost as quickly as it is now made on photographic paper. The next invention was what seemed an equally incredible method of transmitting one's portrait by telegraphy, and finally it was announced that he had at last solved that problem, which it has been the dream of every photographer to accomplish — photography in natural colours at one exposure. Apparently little has been heard of the development of Szczepanik's wonderful notions, and consequently, it will surprise many people to learn that the first and last of these inventions

are accomplished facts, whilst the second has been proved, and only temporarily laid aside be cause of the claims upon the time of the inventor by what he considers more important inventions. In Bradford a machine is working which performs the marvellous weaving process by which are woven artistic designs and portraits by the aid of photography. The accompanying illustration shows a portrait of Mark Twain reproduced in woven silk from a rough crayon drawing under Szczepanik' s process. During his early years in his native village Szczepanik had watched the weavers in their homes working the hand looms, and he saw what a long tedious process it was to produce any ornamental pattern. The weaving was chiefly of plain material, and when any figuring was required it had to be inserted by the process known as shaft-weaving. At this time he had never seen a Jacquard loom, but his thoughts led him to practically re-invent Jacquard's principle, and he" constructed a loom on exactly the same lines. For this loom it was necessary to use perforated cards, and the old method was to punch them by hand from designs made on squared paper. Even to this day the machines for perforating cards for the Jacquard loom are of the most elementary description, and it takes days to punch a design, as it must be done hole by hole, the operator reading off the number of squares from the design, and dropping a punch when he gets to a place where a hole is required. It is far more slow and tedious even than setting printing type. Herr Szczepanik revolutionised this part of the process by the invention of the electric card-cutting machine. For this machine a design was originally prepared with \arnish or pamt on a zinc plate, and this plate was placed on the bed of the machin • which was fed forward by means of a screw. The plate passes under a sort of comb with numerous teeth which press on it. Every tooth of the comb is connected electrically with a punch in another part of the machine, and each punch is operated by an electric magnet. It can now be readily understood by anyone with a smattering of electrical knowledge, that when the teeth of the comb are in contact with the bare metal a current passes and the punch is operated, but when the teeth of the comb pass over ths varnished parts of the metal where the desigi exists, no punches are operated, so that it is as if the machine were en-

dowed with thousands of eyes and thousands of fingers, every part of the design being faithfully rendered. The invention of the electrical card-cutting machine was a splendid step in advance for the weaving industry, but the inventor was not yet satisfied. He had obtained a knowledge of photography and process work, and he saw the possibility of producing the zinc plate designs by photographic means instead of by hand painting or lithograhpic transfer. This led him at first to have the black and white designs photographed and printed direct from the negative by means of bichromated fish glue on to the zinc plate. That was a great saving of time : but the crowning point of Herr Szczepanik's work resulted when he applied the half-tone process to the production of the designs, thereby enabling any photograph or picture to be copied without the necessity of calling in the aid of a draughtsman to make a drawing. It would take up more space than we can allow to describe the process in such detail that the various steps may be followed, but those of our readers who are familiar with the half-tone process, by which the majority of the blocks in this Journal are prepared, will quite understand us when we say that Herr Szczepanik adopts the half-tone principle of using a ruled screen and diaphragms of various shapes projecting on to sensitive paper or plates an image in dots or squares. He at the same time projects the ruling which makes the design look as if it had been drawn on squared paper. The photographic camera accordingly maps out the design into squares, so that even those who have the old hand -cut ting machines can have a design produced more quickly and cheaply than by the aid of the draughtsman, and with the advantage that anything that can be photographed will, m about fifteen minutes, be converted into a weaving design, Herr Szczepanik obtains varied effects and shaded designs by the use of different diaphragms and screens, all resembling very much the practice of half-tone photography.