US389917A - Wood de fobest - Google Patents

Description

(No Model.)

J. BAYNES.

METHOD OF ORNAMENTING WATCH GASES.

No. 389,917. Patented Sept. 25, 1888.

UNITED STATES J 0H1? BAYNES, OF YVESTCHESTER, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-FOURTH TO LOOK WOOD DE FOREST, OF OYSTER BAY, NEW YORK.

METHOD OF ORNAMENTlNG WATCH-CASES.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 389,917, dated September 25, 1888.

(No model.)

To all whom, it may concern:

Be it known that I, Jorrn BAYNES, a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, residing at Westchester, in the county of Westchester and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Method of Ur namenting atch-Cases and other Articles, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to the manufacture of different articles-as watchcaseswases, lamp shades, and other articl es thesurfaces of whi ch are ornamented, in whole or in part, by cutting suitable patterns thereon, and especially to the manufacture of such articles when the surfaces to be ornamented are curved or irregular in form; and my invention consists in the mode, hereinafter set forth,of producing any desired pattern upon the coated surfaces of such articles by means of light-rays without distorting the pattern or impairing the ontlines,and without the use of patternplatcs conforming in shape to the surfaces of the articles.

1n the accompanying drawing 1 have shown in sectional elevation an apparatus for the p u rpose of illustrating one mode of carrying out my invention.

In the ornamentation of certain classes of articles it is desirable to coat the surfaces with a resist sensitive to the action of light, and to act upon this coated surface by light passing through pattern plates or negatives,which affects the portion acted upon,so as to render it sol nble or insoluble, as the case may be, permitting its partial removal to expose the sun face of the article, which may then be etched or cut by means of acids, samtblast, or other wise. No dilficulty is experienced in securing sharply-defined outlines,when the patternplate can be brought in close contact with the coated surface; butin many instances, andin the manufacture of many articles-such as vases, watclrcases, lampshades, and other articles of rounded or irregular l'orms itis not possible to bring the patternplate into contact with the coated surface at more than a single point, and it has been found that in attempting to ornamentsu ch articlesin the manner described the light-rays are diffused after passing through the pattern-plate, so as to enlarge the pattern and impair the sharpness of the outline,

this result ensuing whether the light is trans mitted from the sun, which moves during the operation, and therefore varies the position of the rays upon the coated surface, or from an artificial source of light, from which the rays diverge through the pattern plate, both of which causes aggravate the difficulties due to the diffusion of light.

The objects of my invention are to avoid any variation in the size of the pattern, to secure sharply-defined edges or outlines, and to effect these results without the necessity of making patternplates to correspond in form to the irregular or curved forms of the surfaces to be operated upon.

In effecting these objects I employ a patternplate, 13, which may be flat, and may be either a photographic positive or negative, or an opaque sheet having the desired pattern cut therefrom, or a sheet of glass supporting pieces of foil or other opaque material arranged to produce the desired pattern; and this sheet I place, as nearly as may be, parallel to the gen eral plane of the article to be ornamented-as,

for instance, to the surface of a watch-case, A, but at such a distance therefrom as to leave an intervening air space, no attempt being made to bring the pattern-plate into contact with the article. The article is coated with any suitable resist, sensitive to the action of light--as, for instance, with asphalt-and I prefer to arrange the pattern-plate and the article within a tube, which will tend to prevent diffusion of light, and in any suitable manner I cause the rays of light to pass through the pattern-plate at right angles to the plane thereof and in lines parallel with each other, so that the shadow cast by the pat tern-plate upon the articleshall equal in sharp ness of outline the pattern upon the plate. Difi'erent means may be employed for securing or maintaining parallelism of the light-rays. Where the source of light is statiOnary-as, for instance, an electric lightit is sufficient to throw the rays through the pattern-plate at right angles to the plane thereof, which may be effected by means of a lens, 0, (shown by dotted lines;) but where the source oflight is the sunit is necessary to maintain coincidence of the parts with the movements of the sun, for which purpose I mount the holder or case L,which supports the said parts-that is, the pattern-plate and the articleupon a suitable standard operated by clock work mechanism and constructed to permit the parts to be adjusted to bring the patternplate at right angles to the lines of sunlight, and to thereafter maintain such a movement of the support as will prevent any change in the position of the rays falling upon the article through thepatternplate. Such a support consists of a standard, I, a shaft, J, extending through the standard and connected to clock-work mechanism D, which moves it at the desired speed, and jointed connections K between the shaft and the support of the case L. I need not describe these devices more in detail, as they constitute the subject for a separate application for Let ters Patent, Serial No. 187 ,459.

Any resist which would serve the purposes above described is necessarily of such a character as to require something more than an instantaneous exposure, and it therefore is essential to the perfect carrying out of the process of ornamentation to employ some means, as specified, of maintaining constantly the relation of the parts to the light-rays which act upon the resist. After the exposure has been effected for a suflicient length of time the article is removed, the insoluble portions of the resist are dissolved away, and the surface of the article is then exposed to the action of the cutting agent, whatever it may be.

I am aware that it is not new to arrange a pattern-plate ata distance from the surface of the article to be affected by the rays of light passing through the pattern-plate-as, for instance, in photographing upon porcelain surfacesbut in such case no attempt has been made to secure parallel rays at right angles to the pattern-plate to maintain the position of the light-rays upon the surface of the article, this effectin fact not being required, because in most instances the exposure is for a Very short period of time, and it is desirable to have the rays diverge so as to increase the size of the pattern upon the article over that upon the pattern-plate.

I am also aware that in cases where direct rays of sunlight have been employed in connection with pattern-plates and articles to be operated upon photographically it is not new to arrange the pattern-plates at substantially right angles with the rays of light for the purpose of securing sharp outlines in the picture; but in such cases, as in the first, the exposure is for. a very short period. No attempt is therefore made to automatically move the parts to maintain them in the same relation in respect to the rays of light, and the article and the plate are always so adjusted as to leave practically no intervening air-space between the two.

By my above-described improvement I am enabled to make very many articles which by the processes heretofore known it would not be practicable to produce without either the closejuxtaposition to it, and under the action of light and accompanying heat the resist is apt to throw off fumes which obscure effects or delay operation if such fumes are confined to the small space left by a pattern in contact with a portion or portions of the surface to be acted upon.

I am aware that it is not new to coat surfaces to be ornamented with a film which is sensitive to the action of light and a resist to acid and to photograph upon such coating by the use of an ordinary camera having diverging or converging rays; I am also aware of the patent to Hamilton for improvement in photographicprinting apparatus, dated April 12, 1870, No. 101,728, but my process differs from anything suggested by such prior state of the art for the following reasons: A film which is both sensitive to the action of light and a resist to acid is, in the nature of things, thicker than an ordinary photographic film, which is not in tended to be so used, because in order to make such film a practical resist it must have avery appreciable thickness. \Vith such a film it is particularly important, if it is subsequently to be acted upon by acids, that the rays of light falling upon it, and which tend to make the portions of its surface so affected insoluble, should be parallel rays falling upon the film at right angles or nearly so. This will be apparent from a consideration of the following masons:

Films of the above nature are generally made of asphalt or other material through which the light penetrates with difficulty. If diverging or converging rays are used upon such a film having the necessary thickness with theintention of rendering such surfaceinsoluble entirely through, it is apparent that such diverging or converging rays would have a greater thickness to pass through than if the rays are parallel and at right angles to the surface,and hence there will be a great economy of time in using such parallel rays. This economy I have found by experience is not less than the saving of three-fourths of the time ordinarily employed; and inasmuch as the available light admitted by an ordinary camera-lens is proportional to the area of the lens, whereas by the use of parallel rays as much light can be utilized as can fall directly upon the entire surface to be acted upon, and as I contemplate decorating very large articles by my process, the saving of time is, as compared with such other processes, as I have found by experience, often in the proportion of twenty to one in favor of my process. Again, the use of diverg- IIIC ing or converging rays upon a film of the appreciable thickness, which is requiredwhen the film is intended as a resist to acid, tends to affect the portions of the film which are underneath or behind those portions of the pattern which do not admit light and tends to always blur and sometimes to entirely destroy the finer portions or lines intended to be left by the pattern. Again, when diverging or converging rays of light are used with such a film there will be a much greater irregularity in the character of the work produced owing to the fact that the slightest irregularities on the surface of the film will, by reason of the comparative thickness of the film, cause material variations in the amount of light admitted under the portions intending not to be affected, thereby impairing the accuracy of the result. These and other difficulties are due to the use of ordinary cameras, and have been recognized. (See The Year Book of Photography for 1884, pages 107-110.) Endeavors have been made to obviate them; but no one, so far as I am aware, has practiced either of the forms of process described and claimed by me to overcome the difficulties due to the use of a film adapted to resist acid or overcome such difficulties by the use of parallel rays of light.

Without limiting myself to the precise construction and arrangement ofparts shown, and without limiting myself to acting upon curved or irregular surfaces, except when so specifier in the claims, I claim- 1. The within-describedimprovement in the art of ornamenting articles, which consists in coating the surface to be ornamented with a film which is sensitive to the action of light and a resist to acid, and then transmitting parallel light-rays to the said surface through a pattern-plate arranged at right angles to said rays, substantially as set forth.

2. The withindescribed improvement in or namenting the surface of articles, which coir sists in coating such surface with afilm which is sensitive to the action of light and a resist to acid, and transmitting parallel rays oflight at right angles through a pattern-plate arranged at a distance from the said surface so as to leave an intervening air-space, substan tially as set forth.

3. The within-described improvement in on namenting the surfaces of articles, which consists in coating said surface with a film which is sensitive to the action of light and a resist to acid, and then acting upon the same through a patternplatc arranged at right angles to parallel rays of light transmitted from a source of light, with respect to which the pattern and surface to be acted upon is during the opera tion maintained in substantially the same po sition.

4. The wit-hindescribed improvement in or namenting curved and irregular surfaces, which consists of subj ectiug the surfaces coated with a substance sensitive to light to the action of parallel light-rays passing at right angles through a patteraplate onto the coated surface, and maintained in the same position in respect to the light-rays and the article, substantially as set forth.

5. The withindescribed improvementin the art of ornamenting surfaces, which consists of coating such surfaces with a film sensitive to the action of light and a resist to acid, acting upon said resist by light-rays passing in parallel lines through and at right angles to pat tern-plates, arranged to leave an intervening air-space between the'coated surface and the plate, and then dissolving the soluble portion of the resist and cutting away the exposed surfaces of the articles, all substantially as hereinbefore set forth.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

JO HN BAYNES.

lvitnessesz V BERNARD J. Knnnv. LOOKWOOD DE Fonnsr.

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