Watermark09

After the plates are engraved, and determined to match properly, a piece of brass wire mesh fabric, which has been properly annealed, is placed between them.

   Note: The example above shows a very small piece of fabric between the plates simply to illustrate the process. Small pressed pieces of the brass wire mesh fabric, such as the one illustrated here, may be attached to the dandy roll cover by attaching them in small cutout 'windows'. For this reason, the small pieces are known as patch pieces, or simply patches. But the time and effort necessary to attach the small pieces to the cover wire (by soldering in a process known as seaming) may be too prohibitive. Therefore, as will be seen on the next page, bands of the wire mesh fabric, which are long enough to stretch around the circumference of the dandy roll, are pressed with any number of different watermark plates, and then the bands are soldered in place to form the full cover.

   Pins are then used to align the die and matrix plates so that they fit together properly. The two pins are attached so that they jut up from both sides of the face of the die plate; they each pass up through a single space in the weave of the brass wire mesh fabric, and into matching holes in the matrix plate.

   The two plates, with the brass wire mesh fabric between them are positioned on the bed of a hydraulic press and pressure is applied to squeeze the plates together. The pressure forces the relief of the plates to be transferred to the wire mesh fabric.

The wire mesh fabric is repositioned, the new spot to be pressed is annealed, and the process of applying pressure to the plates is repeated. This continues until the entire surface of the wire mesh fabric is covered with the relief impression of the watermark.

To the right is a photograph of a piece of brass wire mesh fabric that has been pressed with the watermark design. If a piece, such as this one, is intended to be used as a patch, it is now ready to be attached to the dandy roll cover.