Ron May wrote

>Is Hektograph the same a Mimeograph? I duplicated graduate papers as late at
>1975 on those messy beasts. The chemicals stank to high heaven.

Mimeograph was (is?) a development of silk-screen stencil technology. Ink
resided, when it behaved, on a drum. The stencilled master was attached to
this inked cylinder. If you were incredibly lucky, the ink pressed through
the stencil where you had typed.

The two major brands of mimeograph were Gestetner and A.B. Dick.  The
Gestetner machine was much more reliable for several technical reasons,
including a better stencil.  In latter days of mimeograph, it was possible
to transfer pictures to the stencil using a machine that burned off the
coating. Very messy, but it was what we could get. My first published
report was reproduced, pictures and all, by this method.

Hektograph and Ditto were transfer media, where dye was transferred to the
paper more reliably. But a Ditto master could handle only a limited run,
and a Hektograph could produce less. The Ditto process used alcohol to
dissolve small amounts of dye from the master and transfer it to the
specially-formulated slippery paper. In the Hektograph process the dye was
suspended in gelatine, and some of it came off when paper was applied. The
trick was to keep the moisture level in the gelatine exactly at the proper
level.

Ned Heite  ([log in to unmask])
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*   A garden without compost                            *
*   is like a car without a starter                     *
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