Geometric Lathe

[Guy Lautard]

Another type of machine used for doing similar (not identical) work is the Ruling Machine. Cronite made them, also Hope (another maker), whose machine was somewhat larger than the Cronite machine.

These machines have a round table on which a sheet of copper or steel would be stuck down, having first been coated with a waxy resist. The table can rotated by varying amounts, with stops to control the rotation, so that it is the same for every move. Plus the table can also be moved in a straight line under accurate screw control.

There is a carriage running on a slide-way above the table. This carriage carries a scribing tool (likely diamond tipped, for durability), and a metal strip whose edge would be sawn and filed to some wavy pattern by the user.

Each time the carriage is pushed along the slide-way, the scriber comes down and scribes a wavy line through the resist onto the workpiece, per the template. The table would then be rotated a desired amount, and another wavy line would be scribed. When the pattern was completed, it would then be etched into the metal, and the plate would then be used to print from.

Obviously the patterns thus generated would be very hard to reproduce by anyone not possessing the hand-made wavy line template used on the original.

IIRC, I posed a couple of pictures of these machines on here some months ago.

Guy

[Steve Lindsay]

Hi Guy, Fun info! Here is that older thread about ruling machines that you posted pictures in. http://www.handengravingforum.com/showthread.php?t=4047

[delder]

Found this site a while back . I thought it might fit in here.http://www.oberonplace.com/products/...sign/index.htm