Press (machine)

“ Truly it is a marvelous machine—this sextuple press. Nowhere you will find a more perfect adaptation of means to ends, nowhere in any branch of industry a piece of mechanism which offers a finer example of what human skill and ingenuity is capable of. ”

“ To those who are accustomed to Printing, and who are aware how much its beauty depends on what is called the Press-work, to produce which long practice and great manual dexterity are necessary, it might have appeared impossible that any Machine could have been invented to perform such an operation with any degree of precision and success; yet this the continued labour of mechanical ingenuity has accomplished. ”

“ At each of them stands a man, whose duty it is to "feed" the press—that is, place the sheets, one by one, so that at the proper time they will be clutched by the automatic fingers by which they are drawn around the smaller cylinder, at the same time being pressed by the one bearing the type, so that a clear impression is made. The sheets are then carried away by means of tapes, and deposited evenly on tables at the rear of the press. This machine will print sixteen thousand copies an hour, and is often run beyond that speed in the Witness office. ”

“ This monster octuple machine has a perfected system of ink distribution with which no other presses are equipped. Under the system results are obtained by decreasing the size and increasing the number of ink-rollers around each cylinder of plates.
The arrangement of the type cylinders is such as to make the press one that can be handled with great ease and rapidity. Along the right hand of the machine, between the two rows of cylinders, is an open passageway. It is large enough for men to pass through either from the ground or from the gallery near the latitudinal centre of the press. ”

“ The printing is effected by steam-worked presses. The ink is blue, and its composition known only to a few of the authorities. An inspector goes his rounds during the continuance of the operations, watching every press, every workman, every process. A beautiful machine, distinct from the press, is employed to print the variable numbers on the note; fed with sheets of paper, it will number a thousand of them in succession, changing the digits each time, and scarcely requiring to be touched meanwhile; even the removal of one note and the placing of another are effected by automatic agency. ”

“ The rotary machines, with endless paper, take thirty-five thousand impressions an hour. In the newspaper machines of Marinoni, the great inventor, the paper is unrolled, printed, cut, and folded without leaving the machine, and falls into a place from which it is taken ready for the subscriber. The latest perfection of the printing press is the Walter press and the rotary machine of R. Hoe and Co., of New York, extensively used throughout the world. ”

“ Here we find the new improved job printing machine, which is known as the little jobber. This press combines the advantages of speed and durability with convenience, simplicity and cheapness. It is capable of throwing off 2500 impressions per hour with ease, or more, if the feed-boy can supply the sheets, and may even be driven by the foot with a treadle, and works so still, that a person standing a few feet from it, cannot hear it. ”

“ The machine is almost entirely self-acting, from the pumping-up of the ink into the ink-box out of the cistern below stairs, to the registering of the numbers as they are printed in the manager's room above. It is always difficult to describe a machine in words. Nothing but a series of sections and diagrams could give the reader an idea of the construction of this unrivalled instrument. The time to see it and wonder at it is when the press is in full work. ”

“ Eight persons supply the eight small cylinders with the sheets, and at each revolution of the large cylinder eight impressions are given off, the sheets being delivered in neat order by the machine itself. The limit to the speed is in the ability of the eight persons to supply the sheets. At the rate of 2,500 sheets to each, the press would give off the unparalleled number of 20,000 printed impressions per hour. The press is used exclusively for newspapers, or similar printing. ”

“ PAPER-MAKING—Continued Technique.—The importance of the formation of the sheet on the machine wire is the same as on the hand mold, as subsequent pressing and calendering can only modify faulty formation. The stuff should be uniform and even in texture. The press rolls must be ground with absolute accuracy, and slightly crowned to allow for their sagging. Otherwise water would be unevenly expelled from the web, possibly causing a damp streak throughout the entire run of paper, which would show in the finished product. ”

“ Now the chief marvel of a modern combined printing press is its power of being used to print separately a large number of small sized papers or by leading the paper through the press in a slightly different way to print a mammoth paper folded all together and receiving contributions from all six reels at once. In the particular machine in question, which is used to print a comparatively small sized paper, any six of the separate machines can be run separately, if a small paper and a small output only is wanted. ”

“ The experiment was successful, resulting in the production of the wonderful multiple press, which may be seen today in the press room of any great newspaper.
The invention of the Hoe press, the development of the autoplate, a machine invented in 1900 by Henry A. Wise Wood, of New York, whereby the process of stereotyping is made in a practical way subsidiary to newspaper printing, and the invention of wood pulp paper have made possible the modern newspaper. ”

“ It may be easy to conceive a printing machine, or even to make a model of one; but to construct an actual working printing press, that must be sure and unfailing in its operations, is a matter surrounded with difficulties. ”

“ The Hand-press.—Earl Stanhope’s Press.—Improvements.—Cylinder Presses.—Press-room.—Drying Room.—Sewing Room.—Elevator.—Books for the Blind.—Type, Press, and Paper invented.—Catalogue of Great Exhibition.—Estimate of Rapid Labor by Machinery.
We have already referred to the earliest modes of taking the impression from the types by friction, or the rubbing of some hard smooth substance over the paper when laid upon the face of the types.
The hand-press invented by Gutenberg is the only machine absolutely necessary for printers. ”

“ To-day we have in the [Pg 307] place of Caxton’s rude hand-made press great cylinder machines capable of absorbing paper by the mile, and grinding out 20,000 impressions an hour as easily as a child can unwind a reel of cotton.
Side by side with the problem how to produce the greatest possible number of copies in a given time from one machine, has arisen another:—how to set up type with a proportionate rapidity. A press without type is as useless as a chaff-cutter without hay or straw. The type once assembled, as many casts or stereotypes can be made from it as there are machines to be worked. ”

“ Two visitors were wending their way through Machinery Hall at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. Clatter, clatter, clatter—clatter, clatter, clatter—jigger, jigger, jigger—jigger, jigger, jigger. What was that great machine that they were approaching? It was the Walter press, invented in London for the London Times,—"The Thunderer." Well, well! the press does thunder, literally, does it not? It was printing that day's issue of the New York Times, and there were coming from that press about twelve thousand copies of the double-size sheet in an hour. ”

“ Contrasting the work of the machine with that of the press, the printing is much more rapid, and the prints more uniform and regular, while the “life” of the plate is greatly lengthened; one capable of yielding 250 impressions on the scraper press would, in all probability, give 1,000 on the machine—a fact easily accounted for when it is considered that the one is produced by a scraping pressure while the other is made by the rotation of a cylinder. ”

“ With the same attendance, it will print twice as fast as any bed and platen machine, and equally as well in every respect; say from 1,000 to 2,000 impressions in an hour, according to the size of the press, and the quality of the work desired. Vulcanized India rubber impression-cloth for these presses is now furnished; and as it is not readily indented by the type, forms of different sizes may be worked without any change of blankets. Overlays are conveniently made on the rubber, and may be removed by a wet sponge. To prevent noise, buffers are applied as in the double cylinder machine. ”

“ The electric drive, by the way, is an American invention.
In 1830 Samuel Adams, of Boston, built a platen power press, which was long the only power press capable of fine work and exact register. Not long later S. P. Ruggles, of Boston, invented the Diamond, a small, rapid machine for the quick production of cards, envelopes, and other small work, and later, in 1839, the Ruggles rotary, a successful and popular power jobber. In 1856 George P. Gordon began the line of Gordon presses, still made in improved models by the Chandler & Price Company, of Cleveland, and very extensively used. ”

“ But in America the terms “presses” and “pressmen” are universally applied to machines and the men who operate them. For the purposes of this article presses and machines are used as synonymous terms.
Various schemes had been propounded with a view of increasing the output of the hand-press, and in 1790 William The First Cylinder Machine. Nicholson (1753-1815) evolved his ideas on the subject, which were suggestions rather than definite inventions. Nicholson was not a printer, but, as he was an author and editor, it is presumed that he had some knowledge of printing. ”

“ The increase in the circulation of newspapers before the opening of the 19th century demanded greater rapidity of production and turned the attention of inventors to the construction of power or machine presses. Like the paper-making machine, the power press was conceived in the last decade of the eighteenth century, and like that art was also not developed until the nineteenth century. ”

“ It must be remembered, however, that most modern printing is done by machinery on soft paper, and not by the hand press, and these somewhat wiry letters are suitable for the machine process, which would not do justice to letters of more generous design. ”

“ Rolling the Prints.—After the prints have been under the hands of the retoucher, they should be rolled in a rolling-press in order to give a brightness to the printed image. It would be invidious to point out any particular press that should be used. Suffice it to say, there are many excellent ones in the market. The directions for cleaning and using the press are supplied with each machine ”

“ Sheets much larger than double crown (20 x 30 inches) can hardly be worked at a press ; the machine perfects a sheet nearly double this size 50 x 40 or four royal, so that the proportionate product of the machine to the press is about as 32 to 1. Perfecting machines are not so much used for book-work as formerly. The single-cylinder machine has been brought to such perfection, and is so superior in its inking arrangements, that printers prefer it. In America nearly all machines are one-sided. For newspapers of limited circulation, however, the perfecting machine is well adapted. ”

“ By the use of steam and of improved machinery, this inequality is put almost beyond comparison. The typographic single-cylinder type-printing machine can print fifteen hundred impressions in an hour, and the new newspaper perfecting press can print fifteen thousand perfect sheets in an hour. ”

“ Machines outdo manual toil by moving swiftly and continuously [48] in a circle: instead of the smoothing iron we have the mangle, boards are planed by rotary knives, timber is divided by circular saws, and the steam turbine is displacing the steam engine which every moment has to check the momentum of huge reciprocating masses. Noteworthy in this regard is the perfecting press which prints a newspaper from a continuous roll, as contrasted with the old machine which demanded for each impression a distinct series of to and fro movements. The Harris Rotary Press for job printing is of like model. ”

“ The continuous press, which is used for certain classes of worsteds, but more especially for woollen goods, consists in principle of a polished steam-heated steel cylinder against which either one or two steam-heated chilled iron cheeks are set by means of levers and adjusting screws. The pieces to be pressed are drawn slowly between the cheeks and the bowl. A machine of the kind is shown in section in Fig. ”

“ In the first place, the plate is trimmed at the edges, and planed in a planing-machine, which shaves off, from the back, strips of the rough lead.251 It is beveled also; that is, the edges are shaved down in the left hand of the three smaller machines shown in this picture: the object of the beveling is to secure the plate afterward, when it comes to be put on the press. It is also picked out: a workman goes over the lettered surface with a sharp tool, clearing out letters which have accidentally become filled up with lead, and correcting all inaccuracies of form which he discovers. ”

“ The average rate of speed of the "Walter press is 12,000 per hour, the sheets being printed on both sides. In this apparatus every thing is automatic : there is self-feeding and self-delivery, the web of paper at one end being transformed into properly printed single sheets at the other. The machine requires only one man to super intend its general working, including the replacing of the web when printed and the removal of the successive piles of sheets. In respect of speed, if the perfecting machine is to the hand-press as 32 to 1, the rotary will be to the hand-press as 96 to 1. ”