Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume IX

"Very well. Go on."

"I saw this 'mimeograph.' It is not a press. It works on a very different basis, using 'stencils.' I thought that I could make one. With enough time and money and workmen. It would be difficult and very expensive to make, with much hand-fitting of metal parts, especially teeth, and the need for several springs, but it could be done."

"Expensive?"

"If I had tried to copy the 'mimeograph.' There was a lever to partly open the 'drum' so that it could grasp the 'stencil' for example. If the grasping foot did not come together precisely, the stencil would be torn loose and ruined. Many other complications. But I did not copy it. There was another machine, a 'hectograph' it was called. Much simpler, but calling for more complicated inks. I thought-if there were some way to combine these. That was when I saw the 'washing machine.' More precisely, when I saw the 'wringer' attached to the washing machine." Vignelli smiled.

"Wringer?"

"Two wooden rollers, fastened together and cranked by gears. The laundress feeds the wet clothing through them. The movement of the turning rollers moves the cloth through them; the pressure of the two rollers forces the water out of the cloth much more effectively than it can be wrung out by hand."

Holmann nodded. He could visualize how that worked.

"So," Vignelli beamed. "I thought. Take a tray, like the 'hectograph.' Run it through two rollers, one above and one below, as if feeding the cloth. But how to ink it? One more day, two more days, I came back and looked at them again and again. Then, on the third day, when I came in, I looked at the counter where the girl who took the fee I paid was standing. She gave me a receipt. She 'stamped' the date on it, with a mechanical device. It is quite delightful, and simple. I will have to make one some time."

"You are wandering from the point."

"Not really. To get the ink on the stamp, which transferred it to the receipt, she had a little tray, with a pad in it. Not something alchemical. Just a cloth pad inside the little metal tray, soaked with ordinary printer's ink. Boiled linseed oil and carbon black. She had that in a bottle. There was a hinged lid, so the pad could be closed at night so the ink did not dry out. When I asked her, she showed me how to ink the pad, just using a swab and letting it sink in. And then I knew. The hectograph tray, the inked pad-a thin silk covering is best, but fine linen such as is woven for ladies' handkerchiefs and collars will do-the stencil, the piece of paper on top of the stencil, another waxed sheet to protect the rollers from becoming inky, the whole thing moving back and forth between the two rollers of the 'wringer' until the paper is inked. Simple. Cheap. Anyone could make one-any decent craftsman, at least. It was like a divine revelation."

"Show me," Holmann said. "Archbishop Ferdinand invests in results, not concepts."

"See," Vignelli said after he had finished the first demonstration. "The operator can release or tighten the tension on the rollers. He can make a second pass if the ink is getting dry and the paper does not become dark enough the first time."

"I don't think that I believed you," Holmann said. "But it is clear. How many of these machines do you have available?"

"I have already completed ten. At least, my shop had completed ten at the time I began this journey and that was several weeks ago. I have five more almost finished and my assistants are in the workshop even as I talk to you here. I sold two-well, received orders for two-in Frankfurt on my way to Cologne. The eight available, I can deliver as fast as the parts can be transported, unless, of course, my head assistant, who left for Vienna the same day that I started north, has received orders there."

"Tell me about the 'stencils.'"

"They are not durable. You cannot print a large number of copies from a single stencil. The best ones that I have made, waxed silk, allow a hundred pages, perhaps. With good fortune, if the stencil does not wrinkle. Waxed paper will not make more than twenty-five copies, usually, before it begins to deteriorate."

"That doesn't sound good," Holmann complained.

Vignelli suspected that a skilled operator could get many more copies from a stencil-perhaps as many as a hundred from a paper stencil and a thousand from a silk one. But not all operators were skilled and presenting inflated claims to the dukes of Bavaria tended to have permanently fatal consequences for the businessman who presented them. The archbishop was a younger brother of Duke Maximilian. Much better that he should perhaps receive a happy surprise rather than an unhappy one.

"But think. They are simple, even if not durable. Once a traditional print shop somewhere-such as in Cologne-has created the form for cutting the stencil, it can make as many stencils as may be needed. If the shop producing the pamphlet or placard will need to make five hundred copies, then make five stencils. Make a couple to spare. They aren't that expensive. If you want the item copied in ten different towns, if it should be the case that the archbishop has bought ten of these copying devices, then make ten stencils. They are lightweight and easy to distribute. Why, they can even be sent through the mail, properly protected and packed."

"Better, but…"

"At need, it is even possible to make a stencil without a print shop. Just to copy words from a manuscript."

"How?"

"It is best done for large placards, but this way." Vignelli opened a box and tumbled a batch of multi-colored letters on the table. "The up-timers use the Latin letter forms as we prefer them in Italy, not the German Fraktur. These, I understand, were for children in their earliest years, so they are large. Such a treasure, but possibly not surprising. I was highly gratified to discover how many Italians reside in this Grantville. The letters had magnets in the back and could be arranged and rearranged on a magnetic board. I have removed the magnets, of course, for safe-keeping. They are in my shop."

"Which is where?"

"I have established myself in Bolzano. Bozen, you may call it, in the Tirol. The duchess has created a very favorable business climate."

"No wonder. The regent, Duke Leopold's widow, is a Medici," Holmann griped. "Damned family of Italian pawnbrokers, even if they have clawed their way up to Grand Dukes of Tuscany and given two queens to France."

"Not to mention a couple of popes," Vignelli answered mildly. "Let me show you how to use these letters to make a stencil. Of course, any craftsman can make such letters from thin wood. There is no need for them to be of this up-time material."

"You just carry them around to impress potential customers, then?"

"Of course. Now. First draw around them on the piece of paper you intend for your stencil. Then cut them out with a razor blade, quite carefully. Only then wax the paper. Otherwise, no matter how careful a craftsman may be, the wax cracks and the ink seeps through. If the wax does not coat the stencil completely, the paper remains permeable to the ink. We are experimenting with hand-stenciling smaller letters by pricking the paper with a needle, but…"

Holmann had made up his mind. "Hold that for my workman," he said. "You can explain the rest of it to him. The archbishop will take four of your machines. Is it possible to deliver them, ah, inconspicuously?"

"Certainly," Vignelli said. "They are easy to assemble and I have prepared a sheet of directions. When they are disassembled, no guard at a town gate will give them a second glance. If there were a need for easier passage through tolls and customs or other inspections, the parts can even be shipped separately."

"A need?"

"If, for example, there were some need for the archbishop to ensure the preparation of literature in such a city as Magdeburg, or if a partisan of the emperor who is residing in Nuernberg might need discreet access to a way to provide information to the people. I call it," Vignelli said proudly, "a 'duplicating machine.'"