Electric Pen - Design and Use

Design and Use

The electric pen was the key component of a complete duplicating system, which included the pen, a cast-iron holder with a wooden insert, a wet-cell battery on a cast-iron stand, and a cast-iron flatbed duplicating press with ink roller. All the cast-iron parts were black japanned, with gold striping or decoration. The hand-held electric pen was powered by a wet cell battery, which was wired to an electric motor mounted on top of a pen-like shaft. The motor drove a reciprocating needle which, according to the manual, could make 50 punctures per second, or 3,000 per minute. The user was instructed to place the stencil on firm blotting paper on a flat surface, then use the pen to write or draw naturally to form words and designs as a series of minute perforations in the stencil.

Once the stencil was prepared it was placed in the flatbed duplicating press with a blank sheet of paper below. An inked roller was passed over the stencil, leaving an impression of the image on the paper. Edison boasted that over 5,000 copies could be made from one stencil. The electric pen proved ultimately unsuccessful, other simpler methods (and eventually the typewriter) succeeding it for cutting stencils, but Edison licensed his duplicating technology to A.B. Dick, who sold it as Edison's Mimeograph with considerable success. The A.B. Dick Company continued in business as an office products and equipment manufacturer until 2004, when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and its assets were purchased by Presstek, a manufacturer of prepress products.