The printers' handbook of trade recipes Author:Charles Thomas Jacobi Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ROLLERS. ROLLER Composition.—Owing to the introduction in recent years of many patent and ready-mixed compositions, very little is known in most printing offi... more »ces as to the ingredients of composition rollers. One of the principal desiderata in a composition is its non-liability to be affected by change of temperature ; for this purpose the use of glycerine is very valuable, as it is little affected by heat, cold, or frost (it never freezes), while retaining moisture much better than the old treacle and glue compositions. The addition of glycerine, however, necessitates different treatment in regard to cleansing. Water should not be used on a roller containing glycerine or gelatine. The tendency of heat on rollers is to soften them, and cold to harden them; therefore for cold weather the ingredient which gives softness to rollers should be in larger proportion than in hot weather. If the ordinary recipe were treacle eight parts and glue four parts, for cold weather it would be best to give three parts of glue and nine parts of treacle. These proportions would depend very largely, however, on the quality of the glue, experience teaching that this varies in a large degree. Another good recipe for cold weather would be—glue ten parts, sugar ten parts, and glycerine twelve parts. The glycerine will offer strong resistance to frost and cold. Best Period for Making Rollers.—The months of April and May are the best to get rollers for summer use. Don't wait until hot weather is on you. It cannot be expected that winter-made rollers will work well in hot or muggy weather. Damp or Greasy Rollers.—These may be known by their printing a dull, dirty grey instead of a proper black. If new, wash them in turpentine; if old, in lye. Afar better plan is to smother them in common ink-scrape, ...« less