The Mighty Rotary

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 2, 24 March 1927, Page 7 (Supplement)

The Mighty Rotary

WHEN the great Hoe press purrs smoothly *' at the touch of a button and then leaps Into Its stride with a symphony of swift steel, THE SUN can outstrip most of the giant machines in use to-day. Its papers are flung Into the hands of the waiting runners at a ■peed made possible by the miracle of the most modern machinery. Standing in steelgrey mass and intricacy, the press is ominous, like some engine of war for the besieging of eities and the battering down of walls. Roused to action, the long Angers handle ribbons of paper with superhuman delicacy and sureness, swing them round the swirling rollers, and fold and count the imprinted pages at the marvellous speed of 40,000 copies an hour! This is the rotary press, as perfect as science can make it, the latest product of five centuries of endeavour to multiply the impressions of type. THE “BALCONY” TYPE Housed in a spacious gallery 80 feet long, SO feet wide, and 25 feet in height, the machine looks the part of a maker of history. It is the most modern in design and the fastest printing machine ever brought into New Zealand. Manufactured by the world-famous firm of R. Hoe and Co., New York and London, it is of the latest “balcony” type, a design which, up till now, has been unknown in this country. Hitherto, all the presses in use in the Dominion have had to be fed, with the web or continuous ribbon of paper, from the end or from both ends—an inconvenient method. THE SUN’S machine is built on a stand an- the webs of paper are fed from below so that changes of reels may be made more quickly. An additional advantage is that the paper travels by a shorter route to the printing cylinders. Ability to print and inset a newspaper of thirty-two pages at the rate of 40,000 copies an hour is made possible by the press’s double width. The pioneer machine of this kind w T as installed to print THE SUN at Christchurch, and ;his new one is only the fourth erected in New Zealand to include this important feature. The power is derived from two 85 h.p. motors manufactured by Crompton’s of England, and the starter and controlling gear was made by the Cutler Hammer Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee. There are 12 pushbutton stations round the machine, from any one of which the whole press can be operated and controlled. In addition to the ordinary braking mechanism, special electro-magnetic cylinder brakes have been fitted to admit of emergency stops without damage to the machine, An interesting feature is the inking device. The ink flows from a reservoir suspended from the ceiling of the press-room, and down through pipes to the printing cylinders, where it is distributed by a special spray operated by compressed air. This is a new Hoe patent, and represents a great advance on anything formerly used for the distribution of ink to the printing surfaces. FEEDING THE MACHINE Through its equipment of two high-speed folders, the machine will deliver a 16 page Paper from each of them or any newspaper product up to 32 (64 pages) from one of them. The web can be fed into either or both of the folders. Simplicity and compactness of design are among the chief features of the machine, and it can be operated efficiently by a crew of three men. It is 60ft. long, 18ft. high and 20ft. wide, and the weight is 140 tons. It was shipped in nine months from the placing of the order. Speedy assembling of the press reflects Sreat credit on Mr. R. Hindenach, mechanical superintendent for THE SUN NEWSPAPERS LTD. and his staff. The facts speak for themselves. The first cases containing parts of the machine arrived in Auckland on December 9. 1926, and by March 1 the press was completely assembled and running. When other newspapers have installed new presses it has usually been necessary for them to import experts from England to erect them. THE SUN has the advantage of having efficient mechanics who are capable of undertaking any

class of work on the machines in their charge. The gallery itself is roomy and beautifully lighted. It is provided with a balcony from which visitors can see the press in action. They may watch the curved lu.tes from the stereotvpe department Deing screwed into position on the cylinders. Then, after the sounding of the warning bell, the starting motor hums and automatically the big driving motors take over and the press gathers speed. The webs of paper from the reels are drawn swiftly through their intricate way and the finished papers begin to pile up. GENESIS OF THE PRINTING PRESS From wood blocks cut by patient Chinese to a magic button releasing electricity to turn a mighty rotary press, is the story ol printing. History does not make it clear how the first printers with moveable type struck their copies, though experts think that Guter.berg must have used a mechanical press to bring out his 42-line Bible *at Maint'z about the middle of the 15th century. Printing in England began when William Caxton returned to his native land and set up his famous press in 1477. Earliest pictures of a press show an upright frame, a flat bed of solid wood or stone and a platen or horizontal plane. The power was exerted by means of a moveable wooden hf.ndle placed in a screw, the platen being forced down on to the type laid ox the bed. Some improvement to this design was made by William Blaeu (1571-1683), a mapmaker to the Dutch Republic. For three hundred and fifty years after the invention of printing two primitive kinds of wooden press were in use, and then Charles, third Earl Stanhope, invented an iron press, which gave greater 1 ower at a smaller expenditure of labour. Th's was followed by two commercial products, the "Albion,’’ an English manufacture, and the “Columbian,” an American machine. The average output of a hand press was 250 impressions an hour, with two men working on it. A MAGIC IDEA Necessity for increased output led to suggestions from William. Nicholson in 1790 that the type shouk be placea either in a flat bed or round a cylinder and that the impression should be given by another cylinder covered with suitable material, the paper being fed n between the type and the impression cylinder. This was the magic idea of the rotai press. An English idea was again made use of by a foreigner, and it remained for Fredrich Konig to produce the first practical printing machine, in which an impression cylinder was used though the type was in a flat bed. Konig induced “The Times,” London, to install two of his machines in 1814 and the newspaper was printed with steam power at the rate of 1100 impressions an hour These presses printed only one side of the paper at £, time and much trouble was had with the inking. The type-bed travelled backwards and forwards and the machines were known as'“reciprocating." Another speeding up of this famous old newspaper came in IS4B when Augustus Applegarth constructed for it a press in which the type was fixed on a revolving polygon. Eight sheets of paper were fed into it at one time, and it was capable of sending from the one type forme 8000 copies an hour. The pioneer firm of press manufacturers, Robert Hoe and Co., of which the latest product is THE SUN’S machine, then saw that if Applegarth's polygon could be made into a cylinder, greater speed would be obtained. Their “Revolving” machine soon replaced Applegarth's at “The Times” office, and the paper was soon able to issue sheets at the rate of 20,000 an hour, printed on one side only. Since then the invention of stereotyping, or the founding of curved metal sheets, !he replacement of steam and gas by electricity, the feeding of a continuous roll of paper have gone to make the perfect rotary press with its mechanical ingenuity for damping, printing both sides of the paper, cutting, folding, pasting and counting.