Part 4

“At the end of a long row of machinery stands the web press--a massive and complicated construction, especially built by Hoe & Co. for printing, cutting and folding the plain and advertising pages of the ‘Century.’ Web presses for newspapers are common enough, but this press has distinction as the first, and for three years the only, web press used in this country, for good book work. At one end of the machine is a great roll of paper more than two miles long when unwound, and weighing about 750 pounds. As the paper unwinds it passes first over a jet of steam which slightly dampens and softens its hard surface and fits it for receiving impressions, without leaving it wet or sodden. It passes under a plate cylinder, on which are thirty-two curved plates, inked by seven large rollers, which print thirty-two pages on one side. Then it passes around a reversing cylinder which presents the other side of the paper to another plate cylinder, on which are thirty-two plates which print exactly on the back the proper pages for the thirty-two previously printed. This is done quickly--in less than two seconds--but with exactness. But the web of paper is still uncut. To do this it is drawn upward under a small cylinder containing a concealed knife, which cuts the printed web in strips two leaves wide and four leaves long. As soon as cut the sheets are thrown forward on endless belts of tape. An ingenious but undetectable mechanism gives to every alternate sheet a quicker movement, so that it falls exactly over its predecessor, making two lapped strips of paper. Busy little adjusters now come in play, placing these lapped sheets of paper accurately up to a head and a side guide. Without an instant of delay down comes a strong creasing blade over the long center of the sheet, and pushes it out of sight. Pulleys at once seize the creased sheet and press it flat, in which shape it is hurried forward to meet three circular knives on one shaft, which cut it across in four equal pieces. Disappearing for an instant from view, it comes out on the other side of the upper end of the tail of the press in the form of four folded sections of eight pages each. Immediately after, at the lower end of the tail of the press, out come four entirely different sections of eight pages each. This duplicate delivery shows the product of the press to be at every revolution of the cylinder sixty-four pages, neatly printed, truly cut, and accurately registered and folded, ready for the binder. Two boys are kept fully employed in seizing the folded sections and putting them in box trucks, by which they are rolled out to the elevator, and on these sent to the bindery. This web press is not so fast as the web press of daily newspapers, but it performs more operations and does more accurate work. It is not a large machine, nor is it noisy, nor does it seem to be moving fast, but the paper goes through the cylinders at the rate of nearly two hundred feet a minute. It does ten times as much work as the noisier and more bustling presses by its side.”

[Illustration: ROTARY ART PRESS]

The success of this perfecting press induced the makers to devise a machine on the rotary principle adapted for the finest kind of illustrations--in short, to make a press which should do work as fine as it was possible to do on the hand press or the stop cylinder. The result was the setting up, in 1890, at the De Vinne Press, of a machine known as the “Rotary Art” press. This machine is described in the “Century” of November, 1890, as follows:--“Sixty-four plates of the ‘Century’ truly bent to the proper curve, are firmly fastened on one cylinder sixty inches long, and about thirty inches in diameter; sixteen inking rollers, supplied with ink from two fountains, successfully ink these sixty-four plates with a delicacy and yet with a fullness of color never before attained. The shafts of the impression cylinder and the plate cylinders, 4½ inches in diameter, do not give or spring under the strongest impression. Although rigid in every part, in the hands of an expert pressman it can be made responsive to the slightest overlay. This machine is fed by four feeders from single sheets in the usual manner, and does the work of four stop cylinders in superior style. The gain in performance is not as great as the gain in quality of presswork, but quality was considered more than speed. The performance of the machine could have been more than doubled by adding to it other cylinders which would print on both sides of the paper; but careful experiment has proved that the _finest_ woodcuts cannot be properly printed with this rapidity. To get the best results the ink on one side of the paper must be dry before it is printed on the other side.”

[Illustration: “TIT BITS” PRESS]

Among the most interesting modern printing machines are those constructed by Hoe & Co. at their London works, after drawings and patterns sent from New York, for weekly English journals, such as “Tit-Bits,” “Sunday Stories,” and similar periodicals. These machines embody to a certain extent the principles of the “Double Supplement” press before referred to. Double sets of plates are placed upon the main machine, which is capable of taking on an aggregate of twenty-four pages; and by using narrower rolls the number of pages of the body of the journal may be reduced to sixteen or twenty, so that the publisher may have the option of printing his paper either sixteen, twenty or twenty-four pages. In addition to this it prints a cover on a different colored paper, and all at the rate of 24,000 copies per hour; the whole product, including the cover, being cut on the edges and pasted together at the back. The supplement or cover of the press portion, however, instead of having two pairs of cylinders, as in the “Double Supplement” machine, consists of one form cylinder and one impression cylinder. This portion of the machine prints the cover, which is fed from a narrower roll, and, as before stated, of an entirely different color or quality of paper from the body of the journal. The form for one side of the cover is placed on one end of the form cylinder, and that for the other side on the other end of the cylinder. This ingenious combination results in the printing of one cover to every copy of the journal issued and no more.

The demand for printed matter seems to increase with the ability to furnish it, and much attention is now being directed to the subject of color printing on the rotary system. From present appearances, and from the enterprise displayed by the publisher, the artist and the press maker, it would seem as though the day is not far distant when this subject alone would furnish matter for a new chapter in the history of the printing press.

It is very difficult to give in a short article even a summary of the various kinds of machines to print newspapers of various sizes, in black as well as in colors, weekly periodicals, magazines, books, pamphlets, in short every class of printing, in connection with folding, which have been evolved and perfected up to the present time. The work still goes on, one step in advance leading to another, until now a printer can obtain a great variety of machines to print from the roll or fed from separate sheets, and which, especially in the production of large numbers, economize both time and labor. Nor is this constant advance in mechanical construction confined to the machines themselves or the manipulation of the paper. It extends to the manufacture of the paper and the inks, although the manufacturers of the latter have not advanced in the same proportion as the paper-maker, who every year produces finer paper in the roll and in greater quantities than ever before.

[Illustration: OCTUPLE PRESS]

The latest and most elaborate newspaper machine is the Octuple Perfecting Press with Folders, which prints from four rolls, each four pages wide, and gives (from the four deliveries) a running speed per hour of: 96,000 4, 6 or 8-page papers; 72,000 10-page papers; 60,000 12-page papers; 48,000 14 or 16-page papers; 42,000 18-page papers; 36,000 20-page papers; 24,000 24-page papers.

This machine has been further developed into the Improved Combination Octuple (or Double Quadruple) and Color Machine, lately patented by R. Hoe & Co., which, in addition to giving the above mentioned output when printing in black only, will also produce papers in colors at the rate per hour of: 96,000 4-pages; 48,000 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 or 16 pages; 24,000 18, 20, 24 or 28 pages.

[Illustration: DOUBLE SEXTUPLE PRESS BUILT FOR THE NEW YORK JOURNAL]

R. Hoe & Co. have now in process of construction four mammoth printing machines, which will give a greater product and a greater variety of products than any machines that have hitherto been devised. They are Double Sextuple Presses and so called, but in reality are much more than this, inasmuch as they combine the ability to do printing in colors as well as in black. This machine is composed, so to speak, of two separate, complete printing mechanisms, each fed from three four-page-wide rolls of paper; the apparatus for the gathering and folding of these webs of paper after printing being in the centre between the two sections of the machine. The “formers” and folders (placed back to back) enable a manipulation or gathering of the webs which could not be readily obtained in any other way. All these devices and methods have been patented by Hoe & Co. The following is a summary description of these new machines and what they will accomplish. The two sections may be used separately if desired, as independent machines.

Each of the two portions of the machine is composed of six pairs of cylinders, arranged, with their axles parallel, in three tiers of two pairs each and printing on both sides (or perfecting) three webs of paper from separate rolls, each four pages wide. One of the sections is also arranged so that all six sets of cylinders will print upon a single web in colors and black, this web being associated with the three webs from the other portion to form a colored cover for the products, when required.

The rolls of paper are placed at the end of the machine--three at each end--and the two folders for each portion are placed back to back midway in the length of the machine. The runs of all the webs are therefore approximately the same and as short as it is possible to have them--a matter of much importance in the running of multiple webs.

Altogether there are twelve plate cylinders in the machine, each carrying eight plates the size of a newspaper page. Either stereotype or electrotype plates may be used. To receive the latter, which are much thinner than stereotype plates, special base or jacket plates are secured to the cylinders. The ink is applied to the plates by four form rollers, after having been thoroughly distributed by vibrating rollers and cylinders.

The full capacity of the machine, when printing all black, on six rolls, is 96,000 twelve-page papers per hour, and other numbers of pages at proportionate speeds, namely, four, six, eight and ten-page papers, at the same speed as twelve-page; fourteen and sixteen-page papers at 72,000 per hour; eighteen, twenty, twenty-two and twenty-four page papers at 48,000 per hour. The three webs from each portion of the machine are led to the top of the folders, where they are divided along their centre line into webs two pages wide, and then run down each of the four “formers,” by which they are folded along their centre. They are then led through cylinders which cut them into page lengths and give them a fold across the page to half-page size. In this way twenty-four page papers may be obtained at the rate of 48,000 copies per hour, by collecting two twelve-page sections on the cylinder just before the half-page fold is made. Another method of running twenty-four page papers is to associate the six webs, from both portions of the machine, and run them over one pair of “formers,” thus folding all six webs together, or insetting them, in the first fold.

Lesser number of pages may be obtained by making various combinations, the number of which is almost limitless. Angle bars are placed in the machine for transferring half-width webs of paper from one side of the press to the other, facilitating these combinations.

The maximum product of the machine when running as a color press is 48,000 sixteen-page papers per hour, with the two outside pages printed in four colors and black; the other pages in black only. If, however, it is not desired to have so many colors on the outside pages, it is possible to obtain twenty-page papers, at the rate of 48,000 per hour, with the two outside pages in two colors and black; all the other pages in black only. Papers with any number of pages from four to sixteen, with four colors and black on the outside pages, the other pages in black only, can be obtained at a speed of 48,000 per hour. By running the full product of the color section of the machine into one folder and associating therewith webs of paper from the other section of the machine, papers with any number of pages from eight to twenty-four, with the two outside pages and two of the inside pages printed in four colors and black, the other pages in black only, can be produced at a speed of 24,000 per hour.

The dimensions of this machine are as follows: Length, 35 feet; height, 17 feet; width, 9 feet; the weight, about 225,000 pounds; and the number of parts of which it is composed, approximately 50,000.

The last three or four years have also witnessed an immense advance in the art of color printing. The magazine without an elaborate color cover, or perhaps colored illustrations, is now an exception, whereas it was the reverse not long ago. After satisfactory experiments it was ascertained by the writer that, with the inks properly prepared, and suitable plates to print from, colors could be printed almost simultaneously upon the paper, without mingling; in short that the supposed necessity, in much of the work done, of drying the sheets after the impression of each color on the paper, was not necessary for the production of a good quality of printing. Further experiments also proved the mechanical possibility of obtaining most accurate register in printing from a roll and that the number of impressions, or colors, could be increased to advantage. These various experiments resulted in the construction by Hoe & Co. of color presses which were almost simultaneously installed by the proprietors of the New York “Herald” and the New York “World,” who commenced the publication of colored supplements, upon a system which has been adopted by the papers in most of the large cities, and which they have never discontinued. The practicability of printing in colors has been so fully demonstrated that color attachments are being added to very many of the large newspaper presses throughout the country.

The most extensive of the color presses, and the largest printing machine ever constructed, is the color press made by Hoe & Co. for the New York “Journal” and now used in printing portions of the Sunday editions of that paper, although others of approximate proportions and capacity have been made for the New York “World,” the New York “Herald,” the Chicago “Tribune,” the Boston “Post” and other newspapers. This machine gives as many as eleven separate impressions, or colors, on a single copy of the paper; that is, it will print in six colors on one side of the sheet and five on the other, or it may be arranged to print three colors on one side and six on the other, giving a speed of about 16,000 eight-page papers an hour, or at every revolution of the cylinders the equivalent of two perfect eight-page papers printed in colors. Four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, twenty, twenty-four, twenty-eight or thirty-two-page papers may be printed on this machine, as required, from one, two or three double-width (or four-page-wide) rolls of paper. It will also produce magazine forms (with pages half the size of those of the regular issue of the paper) at from 16,000 to 24,000 an hour, either 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 40 or 48 pages, delivered folded, cut, and automatically wire-stitched, with all the pages printed in colors or half-tones.

Such a development of the art of printing, especially in colors, in which accurate register is not only necessary, but must be maintained, would have seemed incredible a few years ago, but this is now a daily occurrence and many newspaper offices produce colored supplements in the same manner and with the same results, having additions placed upon their quadruple, sextuple and other presses for the purpose.

[Illustration: “COLLIER’S WEEKLY” PRESS]

Nor has this development of colors been confined entirely to the demands of the newspaper world. It is gradually finding its way into the weekly periodical and the monthly magazines. It had been considered impossible to print half-tone illustrations on both sides of the sheet at one operation and deliver them flat, without smutting. Not only has this difficulty been overcome, but in the latest presses, such as used by Collier’s Weekly, the finest half-tone work is done on a perfecting press printing on a roll of paper. The periodical is printed in multiple pages, as required, and delivered from the machine folded, cut apart and pasted, ready for the binder. It is not desirable, of course, when using fine inks, to make immediate delivery from the press; therefore the papers, after having been perfected, folded and pasted, are left to stand for some hours before they are distributed to the readers. Satisfactory methods of doing this have also been devised. The capacity for printing fine half-tone illustrations on a rotary press having thus been demonstrated the next step is evidently the production of colored half-tones, and the time is undoubtedly near at hand when the monthly magazine as well as the weekly periodical will appear, instead of in black half-tones, now so popular, with these same illustrations printed in the most delicate manner in colors and all delivered in perfection from rotary presses, folded in entirety, or in signatures, ready for the binder.

It must now be evident to every experienced observer that the time has arrived when printing upon the rotary system will in a large measure supersede that now done upon flat-bed cylinder presses, although the latter will always be retained for some kinds of work. Satisfactory methods will be devised for attaching upon the cylinders electrotype or stereotype plates of varying sizes. In addition to this, new and improved methods are constantly being brought forward for the transferring of type forms, photographs and illustrations of every description, upon prepared sheets of metal, which receive the ink and give impressions either from a raised surface, as in the ordinary letter-press printing, or in the manner of lithographic printing. These and other new methods of making plates will undoubtedly lead in the future to great economy, as well as to important improvements in the process of printing.

ROBERT HOE.

[Illustration: (Colophon)]

[Illustration: (FROM MEDAL BY SCHARFF)]

Transcriber’s Notes

The List of Illustrations at the beginning of the book was created by the transcriber.

Placement of Illustrations have been slightly adjusted to better coordinate with the text.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation and spelling such as “flat-bed/flat bed” and “letter-press/letterpress” have been maintained.

Page 31: Added double quote to “Double”.