The mimeograph machine (abbreviated to mimeo) or stencil duplicator used to be used in businesses as a cheap alternative to commercial printing for small runs of seceral dozen to several thousand copies. Stencil duplicators, were for many decades used to print short-run office work, classroom materials and church bulletins. These technologies began to be replaced by phoocopying in the 1960s. Although photocopying and cheap offset printing have replaced mimeography almost entirely in more developed coutries, mimeography continues to be a working technology in the less developed countries as no electricity is required. In mid-range quantities, it is still more economical.
This is how it works: - Special mimeograph or duplicator ink is applied as appropriate to the particular machine. - Paper to be printed is placed in the paper tray. - A prepared stencil is wrapped tautly and smoothly around the cylinder and secured at one or both ends, depending on the machine. - As the cylinder is rotated, a pressure roller inside the machine presses paper against the cylinder. - The roller forces the ink through the openings that were cut in the stencil onto the paper.
The paper had a surface texture (like bond paper), and the ink was black and odourless. You could use special knives to cut stencils by hand, but handwriting was impractical, because any loop would cut a hole and thus print a black blob. If you put the stencil on the drum wrong-side-out, your copies came out mirror-images 
The Mimeograph machine was made so popular because it had the ability to make many copies cheaply. Mimeography was much cheaper than traditional print because there was no type setting, printing equipment, or intensive and skilled labor involved. One individual with a typewriter and the necessary equipment essentially became his own printing factory. This allowed for cheap mass production in an era when mass production was becoming an essential factor of society. Now instead of costly handbills or time consuming hand written copies, a mimeograph machine could rapidly produce many copies, which allowed for greater circulation of printed material and a wider usage of that material due to sheer number. Essentially, the Mimeograph became the first individual mass-distribution device. The Mimeograph slowly evolved from a simple, personal-use, more-rapid printing device by incorporating the technological advances that came during the twentieth century. Mimeographs were outfitted from semiautomatic inking to becoming fully automatic inking relieving the need to have an individual continually ink the device. Automatic paper feeding apparatuses were added to the machines giving them the ability to feed sheets through the Mimeograph by itself. As technology progressed, Mimeographs were adapted to be able to print in multiple colors.
Mimeographs were also used for low-budget amateur publishing, especially by science fiction fans who have now turned mainly to e-mail and the Internet. They were used extensively in the production of fanzines in the middle 20th Century, before photocopiers became widespread.
Fans adopted certain typographical practices, due to the tendency of the mimeo stencil to tear, thus becoming useless. Often, underlining was avoided in spaces and on the letters with
desenders, and sometimes replaced by dotted line. Letters and typographical symbols were sometimes used to create illustrations, in a precursor to ASII art. Because changing ink color in a mimeograph could be a laborious process, involving extensively cleaning the machine or, on newer models, replacing the drum or rollers, and then running the paper through the machine a second time, some fanzine publishers experimented with techniques for painting several colors on the pad, notably Shelby Vick who created a kind of plaid “Vicolor”.
Other duplicating devices:
Gocco is a self-contained compact color printing system invented in 1977 by Noboru Hayama. Using flash bulbs similar to those found in old cameras, an original image is thermally imprinted on a master screen. The name "print gocco" is derived from the Japanese word and concept "gocco", loosely translated as a type of make-believe play used to learn common rules and knowledge.
In December 2005, Gocco’s parent company, Riso Kagaku Corporation, announced it would end production of the Gocco system due to low sales in Japan. An Internet campaign was started to find a new home for the product.
The ditto machine (or spirit duplicator)
It was mainly used by schools and churches. The ditto machine used two-ply "spirit masters" or "ditto masters". The first sheet could be typed, drawn, or written upon. The second sheet was coated with a layer of colored wax. The pressure of writing or typing on the top sheet transferred colored wax to its back side, producing a mirror image of the desired marks. (This acted like a reverse of carbon paper.) The two sheets were then separated, and the first sheet was fastened onto the drum of the (manual or electrical) machine, with the waxed side out.
The usual wax color was aniline purple, a cheap, durable pigment that provided good contrast, but other colors were available. Unlike mimeo, ditto had the useful ability to print multiple colors in a single pass, which made it popular with cartoonists. One well-made ditto master could at most print about 500 copies--far fewer than a mimeo stencil could manage
The hectograph was an earlier technology in which a dye-impregnated master copy, not unlike a ditto master, was laid on top of a cake pan full of firm unflavored gelatin. After the dye soaked into the gelatin, sheets of paper could be laid on top of the gelatin to transfer the image. This was good for fifty copies at most. Hectography was slow, clunky, and weird, but it could inspire great intrepidity in its users.
Ditto machines and mimrograph machines were always competing technologies. Mimeography was in general a more forgiving technology. Overall print quality was frequently poor, though a capable operator could overcome this with careful adjustment of feed rate, pressure, and solvent volume. During their heyday, tabletop duplicators of both sorts were the inexpensive and convenient alternative to conventional typesetting and offset or letterpress printing. They were well suited for the short runs used for school worksheets, church newsletters, and fanzines. Even the least technically-minded teachers, professors, and clergy could make use of them. They owed most of their popularity to this relative ease of use and, in some cases, to their lack of a requirement for an external power source.
Both the isopropanol and the methonal found in ditto solvents are toxic substances. These chemicals can cause a host of medical problems when humans are improperly exposed.
Despite their toxicity, the aroma of pages fresh off the Ditto machine was a memorable feature of school life for those who attended in the ditto machine era. Apparently, it was so good, that when the teracher was handing out exam papers, the first thing the child would was to lift up the sheet and inhale!
Spirit duplicator technology fell into disuse sometime after the availability of low-cost, high-volume xerographic copiers starting in the 1970s. They remained popular through the early 1990’s in places where there was no electricity. The technology was also used until then by science fiction fandom for the production of fanzines, particularly for amateur press associations.
desenders, and sometimes replaced by dotted line. Letters and typographical symbols were sometimes used to create illustrations, in a precursor to ASII art. Because changing ink color in a mimeograph could be a laborious process, involving extensively cleaning the machine or, on newer models, replacing the drum or rollers, and then running the paper through the machine a second time, some fanzine publishers experimented with techniques for painting several colors on the pad, notably Shelby Vick who created a kind of plaid “Vicolor”.
Other duplicating devices:
Gocco is a self-contained compact color printing system invented in 1977 by Noboru Hayama. Using flash bulbs similar to those found in old cameras, an original image is thermally imprinted on a master screen. The name "print gocco" is derived from the Japanese word and concept "gocco", loosely translated as a type of make-believe play used to learn common rules and knowledge.
In December 2005, Gocco’s parent company, Riso Kagaku Corporation, announced it would end production of the Gocco system due to low sales in Japan. An Internet campaign was started to find a new home for the product.
The ditto machine (or spirit duplicator)
It was mainly used by schools and churches. The ditto machine used two-ply "spirit masters" or "ditto masters". The first sheet could be typed, drawn, or written upon. The second sheet was coated with a layer of colored wax. The pressure of writing or typing on the top sheet transferred colored wax to its back side, producing a mirror image of the desired marks. (This acted like a reverse of carbon paper.) The two sheets were then separated, and the first sheet was fastened onto the drum of the (manual or electrical) machine, with the waxed side out.
The usual wax color was aniline purple, a cheap, durable pigment that provided good contrast, but other colors were available. Unlike mimeo, ditto had the useful ability to print multiple colors in a single pass, which made it popular with cartoonists. One well-made ditto master could at most print about 500 copies--far fewer than a mimeo stencil could manage
The hectograph was an earlier technology in which a dye-impregnated master copy, not unlike a ditto master, was laid on top of a cake pan full of firm unflavored gelatin. After the dye soaked into the gelatin, sheets of paper could be laid on top of the gelatin to transfer the image. This was good for fifty copies at most. Hectography was slow, clunky, and weird, but it could inspire great intrepidity in its users.
Ditto machines and mimrograph machines were always competing technologies. Mimeography was in general a more forgiving technology. Overall print quality was frequently poor, though a capable operator could overcome this with careful adjustment of feed rate, pressure, and solvent volume. During their heyday, tabletop duplicators of both sorts were the inexpensive and convenient alternative to conventional typesetting and offset or letterpress printing. They were well suited for the short runs used for school worksheets, church newsletters, and fanzines. Even the least technically-minded teachers, professors, and clergy could make use of them. They owed most of their popularity to this relative ease of use and, in some cases, to their lack of a requirement for an external power source.
Both the isopropanol and the methonal found in ditto solvents are toxic substances. These chemicals can cause a host of medical problems when humans are improperly exposed.
Despite their toxicity, the aroma of pages fresh off the Ditto machine was a memorable feature of school life for those who attended in the ditto machine era. Apparently, it was so good, that when the teracher was handing out exam papers, the first thing the child would was to lift up the sheet and inhale!
Spirit duplicator technology fell into disuse sometime after the availability of low-cost, high-volume xerographic copiers starting in the 1970s. They remained popular through the early 1990’s in places where there was no electricity. The technology was also used until then by science fiction fandom for the production of fanzines, particularly for amateur press associations.
rusted, decaying, worn out type. I like these and thnk i could go somewhere with them but i want to step back a bit fro the brief, this idea is too obvious.
