Lithographic Printing Machine?

[Selby]

Hello 

I've just been sent a picture of two family members (I'm trying to work out who they are) sitting in front of a (lithographic?) printing machine. The family was involved in lithographic printing from around 1890, and I think this photograph is dated around 1900?

Does anyone know what the machine is please?

Many thanks, Selby

[purlin]

Have you any idea what sort of material they printed that may narrow down the search.

[Guy Etchells]

One of the important printing machine makers was Heidelberg, but I have no idea what the one in the photo was.
An offset litho printing machine basically uses a water film to prevent oil based printing on non image areas of the printing plate. The required image is etched onto a printing plate, this plate is attached to a cylinder then run against a damp roller then against an ink roller the inked image is then transferred onto a print roller that transfers the image to the paper this process continues until the required number of prints have been taken.
This process was then repeated using a different image for a different colour until the colour image required was produced, modern offset printers have a number of plates, ink and print rollers for the different colours allowing for a single run of the machine to print the required colour image.
They used to have a number of litho machines at the printers I drove for in the 1970s.
Cheers
Guy

[Selby]

I honestly don’t know anything, I just know that lots of the men in the family were recorded as lithographic printers…. This machine looks huge! Selby

[Viktoria]

There must have been stone involved in the first type of lithographic printing
as “ litho “ pertains to stone .
Certainly stone slabs were used to spread the coloured inks on ,but pretty much a manual process.
The posters of Toulouse Lautrec were lithographs  I believe.
Viktoria.

[Guy Etchells]

There must have been stone involved in the first type of lithographic printing
as “ litho “ pertains to stone .
Certainly stone slabs were used to spread the coloured inks on ,but pretty much a manual process.
The posters of Toulouse Lautrec were lithographs  I believe.
Viktoria.

Yes stone was used in the manual process but with machine printing the stone was replaced by etched aluminium sheets.
Some of the litho printers were very big with multiple print rollers for the different colours, http://www.rootschat.com/links/01qrl/ as for litho stones, this is claimed to be the largest http://www.rootschat.com/links/01qrk/
Cheers
Guy

[Gadget]

When I was in art school in the 1980s-90s, we used metal plates. We had to go through many stages to prepare the plates before we put them through the press (flat bed). I can't remember them now though.  I think I still have a little notebook with all the stages written down.

As an aside - the black oily litho crayons that  were used to draw on the plates gave really lovely effects when drawing on paper 

Gadget

[Viktoria]

The process involves a sort of battle between grease and water ,a sort of resistance ,I seem to remember ,many different processes .
I can’t explain more as already I am out of my depth !
I think that info comes from a biography of Toulouse Lautrec who was a French aristocrat, a great disappointment to his father hence his mother’s doting in him because of the problem with T.L’s legs which were very short.

He wasn’t kneeling on his shoes as was Jose Ferrier in the film “ Moulin Rouge”.
Viktoria.

[oldfashionedgirl]

OH who was a printer all his life and inherited his father’s business said yes litho.
Due to it’s size it was probably for printing packaging.