Object Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
Vertical Blue Printing Machine |
Object Name |
Machine, Blueprint |
Collection |
Architectural Tools Collection |
Catalog Number |
2024.19.1 |
Description |
Vertical Blue Printing Machine The C.F. Pease Company, 1910 Large machine with circular glass walls and rolled canvas to one side used for the purpose of printing large-scale blueprints. This type of machine is also called a heliographic copier. |
Context |
This blueprint machine, called a heliographic copier or heliographic duplicator, is an apparatus used in the world of reprography for making contact prints on paper from original drawings made with that purpose on tracing paper, parchment paper or any other transparent or translucent material using different procedures. The light sensitivity of certain chemicals used in the cyanotype process, was already known when the English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel discovered the procedure in 1842 and several other related printing processes were patented by the 1890s. When Herschel developed the process, he considered it mainly as a means of reproducing notes and diagrams, as its use in blueprints. For this process the original plan and a sheet sensitized paper are introduced, in perfect contact, within the copier rollers that pull and expose them to a source of ultraviolet light, typically a blacklight lamp, similar to the manual action to expose both sheets strongly bonded directly to the sunlight. A copy of the original drawing then appears on the new sheet. |
Currently On Display In |
Visible Vault: Open Collections Storage |
Date |
1910 |
Maker |
C.F. Pease Company |
Role Artist |
Company |
Lexicon Category |
6: Tools & Equipment for Communication |