for newspaper or periodical work. They are made to print upon a single reel, or upon two, four, six or even eight reels, in both single or double widths, i.e. two or four pages wide.
The hand-press has already been sufficiently described, and we may proceed to deal with the other classes.
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Fig. 4.—The Golding Jobber Platen |
The small but useful platen machine (fig. 4) is very largely employed in those printing-houses that make commercial work a speciality. The smaller machines can be worked Platen Jobbing Machines. with the foot, but if the establishment is equipped with power it is customary to gear them for driving. The larger machines require power. As its name implies, the type bed and impression platen are both flat surfaces as in the hand-press, but as they are self-inking and are easily driven, the average output is about 1000 copies per hour, and but one operator is required, whereas two men at a hand-press can produce only 250 copies in the same time. In design these platen presses usually consist of a square frame with a driving shaft fixed horizontally across the centre of it. This shaft is attached to a large fly-wheel which gives impetus to the press when started and assists in carrying over the impression when the platen is in contact with the printing surface. The type-forme is usually fixed in an almost vertical and stationary position, and it is the platen on which the sheet is laid which rises from the horizontal position to the vertical in order to give the necessary impact to produce a printed impression from the type-forme. Practically this platen is, as it were, hinged at the off side, nearest the type bed, and its rise and fall is effected by the use of two arms, one on each side of the platen, which derive an eccentric motion from cams geared in connexion with the shaft. When the sheet is printed and the platen falls back to the horizontal the operator removes it with one hand and with the other lays on a fresh sheet. Generally the larger of these machines will print a sheet up to 21 × 16 in.
The modern single or “stop” cylinder, quite different in construction “Wharfedale” Machines. from the old single cylinder machines, largely succeeded the double platen machine. The principle of the stop cylinder was really a French invention, but it has been more commonly adopted in Great Britain, where the machines are known as “Wharfedales” (fig. 5). They are much used for the printing of books and commercial work. The average production is about 1000 copies per hour. The type bed travels with a reciprocating motion upon rollers or runners made of steel, the bed being driven by a simple crank motion, starting and stopping without much noise or vibration. All the running parts are made of hard steel. The cylinder is “stopped” by a cam motion while the bed is travelling backward, and during this interval the sheet to be printed is laid against the “marks,” and the gripper closes on it before the cylinder is released, thus ensuring great accuracy of lay, and consequent good register. After the impression is made the sheet is seized by another set of fingers and is transferred to a second and smaller cylinder over the larger one, and this smaller cylinder or drum delivers the sheet to the “flyer,” or delivery apparatus, which in turn deposits it u on the table. The inking arrangements are usually very good, for, by a system of racks and cogs which may be regulated to a nicety, the necessary distribution of ink and rolling of the printing surface runs in gear with the travelling type bed or coffin. All the accessories for inking are placed at the end of the machine, the ink itself being supplied from a ductor, which can be so regulated by the keys attached to it as to let out the precise amount of pigment required. The ink passes to a small solid metal roller, and is then conveyed by a vibrating roller made of composition to a larger and hollow metal cylinder or drum which distributes the ink for the first time. This revolves with the run of the machine and at the same time has a slight reciprocating action which helps the distribution. A second vibrating composition roller conveys the ink from this drum to the distributing table or ink slab, on which other rollers, called distributors, still further thin out the ink. As the type bed travels, larger composition rollers, called inkers, placed near the cylinder, adjusted to the requisite pressure on the type, pick up the necessary amount of ink for each impression and convey it to the type as it passes under them. Usually three or four such rollers are required to ink the forme.
Fig. 5.—Payne & Sons' Wharfedale Stop-Cylinder Machine.
The perfecting machine is so named because it produces sheets printed on both sides or, in technical language, “perfected.” This Perfecting Machines. operation is performed by two distinct printings. This class of machine has been in use a great many years, although both the stop-cylinder and the two-revolution press have to some extent superseded it. It is perhaps best adapted for the printing of newspapers or magazines having circulations that do not require rotary machines intended for long runs. Although some perfecting machines have been made with one cylinder only, which reverses itself on the old “tumbler” principle, they now are made with two cylinders, and it is with this class that we are particularly concerned. There are various makes of perfecting machines of which the Dryden & Foord is shown in fig. 6; among the best recent typed is the Huber Perfecter.
Although the two-type beds have a reciprocating motion, as in the ordinary one-sided press, the two cylinders rotate towards each other. The frame of the machine, owing to the fact that it contains two carriages and a double inking apparatus, is long, the exact size depending on the size of the sheet to be printed. Close to the large cylinders are the inking rollers, which take the necessary amount of ink, each set from its own slab as it passes under, and these rollers convey the requisite ink to the printing surface as the forme-carriage runs under its own cylinder. The distinctive feature is the ingenious manner in which the sheets are printed first on one side, and then on the other. This is performed by carrying them over a series of smaller cylinders or drums by means of tapes. The pile of sheets
