was used), which was written upon with a special stylus that left a broken line through the stencil, removing the paper's wax coating. Ink was forced through the stencil (originally by an ink roller), and it left its impression on a white sheet of paper. Until this time, any "short copy runs" which were needed for the conduct of a business—e.g., for the production of 10–50 copies of contracts, agreements, or letters—had to be copied by hand. (If more were needed, the document would have to go to the printers.) After the run had been copied, business partners had to read each one to ensure that they were all exactly the same, and that human error had not resulted in any aberrant copies. The process was time-consuming and frustrating. The stencil-copy method meant that only one copy had to be read, as all copies were mechanically identical. Gestetner had therefore revolutionised the office copying process. Gestetner developed his invention, with the stencil eventually being placed on a screen wrapped around a pair of revolving drums, onto which ink was placed. The drums were revolved and ink, spread evenly across the surface of the screen by a pair of cloth-covered rollers, was forced through the cuts made in the stencil and transferred onto a sheet of paper which was fed through the duplicator and pressed by pressure rollers against the lower drum. Each complete rotation of the screen fed and printed one sheet. Model 66 was perhaps the most famous Gestetner machine, designed by Raymond Loewy; examples are currently housed in the British Museum and Churchill's War Bunker in Whitehall. After the first typewriter was invented, a stencil was created which could be typed on, thus creating copies similar to printed newspapers and books, instead of handwritten material. See also Cyclostyle (copier) Mimeograph Photocopier Spirit duplicator Thermofax References External links Gestetner official website Office equipment Printing press manufacturers Defunct companies based in London Defunct manufacturing companies of England Manufacturing companies based in London Manufacturing companies established in 1881 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2007 1881 establishments in England 2007 disestablishments in England Companies acquired by Ricoh Ricoh 1995 mergers and acquisitions