MODERN NEWSPAPER PRESSES
A modern large newspaper press is a bewildering sight to behold; there is such a vast number of rolls and cylinders, and the web of paper moves so rapidly. But, after all, the machine is multiplex rather than complex. It consists of a large number of printing cylinders, all operating in a single frame. Take, for instance, a double-octuple, color-combination press. It consists really of two separate presses, each operating on four webs of paper that feed from opposite ends toward the middle. There are two type cylinders for each web, one for each side of the paper. Each cylinder is long enough to take four stereotype plates side by side, and since each plate extends but half way around the cylinder we have eight pages printed on each side of the web. This makes sixteen pages per web or sixty-four for each half of the machine, giving a total of 128 page impressions at each turn of the cylinders. It is seldom that a 64-page paper is required, hence the webs are slit in two by a revolving knife blade and each section of the press has two folding mechanisms so that two sets of 16-page papers are printed, folded, and delivered by each section. Arrangements are provided whereby the product may consist of 32-page papers. The papers are delivered by a traveling conveyor and every fiftieth paper is pushed out ahead of the others so as to provide a simple method of keeping count of the product.