Old Copy Machine With Purple Ink

There were two cylinders with a silkscreen belt running on them.

Old copy machine with purple ink.

It does not use ink. The stencil was thin rubber backed with paper and it was critical to get this on right while peeling the paper backing. The master for the ditto was only good for a limited number of copies as the solvent spirit dissolved the surface of the ink on the master allowing it to be transferred to the special paper. I began teaching in the 80s and used this machine every day.

Both pieces of paper are stained with purple ink because they went through a machine invented in 1923 called a ditto machine or spirit duplicator. When i was in grade school i remember this copier that printed in purple ink and the secretary had to turn a handle to produce copies. Feb 24 2016 ditto machines. The mimeograph process should not be confused with the spirit duplicator process.

I guess we changed those. It didn t use a drum. Sold a hectograph kit as late as 1974 tray gelatin a few sheets of purple inked paper and that thick cover. Ditto machine the duplicator that produces purple copies is not a mimeograph.

Ditto machines made the purple copies that faded over time faster with exposure to light. We just cleaned it out to change color. I never knew to actual name of it. Ideally each ink color would have its own screen.

A ditto machine was a primitive photocopier that used a solvent like methylated spirits or ammonia to transfer ink from the master copy the template if you will onto other pieces of paper. Mimeographs along with spirit duplicators and hectographs were a common technology in printing small quantities as in office work classroom. It is a spirit duplicator called alcohol process duplicator in europe. Ditto machine purple print and that smell.

The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine often abbreviated to mimeo is a low cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. Duplicating machines were the predecessors of modern document reproduction technology. They have now been replaced by digital duplicators scanners laser printers and photocopiers but for many years they were the primary means of reproducing documents for limited run distribution the duplicator was pioneered by thomas edison and david gestetner with gestetner dominating the market up until.