THE HOE PERFECTING PRESS.
The enterprise of R. Hoe & Co., of New York, soon gave birth to a web perfecting press combined with a folding machine that answers every requirement.
THE HOE WEB PERFECTING PRESS.
The groundwork principle is the same as in other presses of this kind. The first pair of cylinders over which hangs the roll of paper consists of one type and one impression cylinder, and by it the first side of the paper is printed. The second pair, printing the second side, consists likewise of one type and one impression cylinder, but the latter is below the former and is of much greater size, so that the “set off” from the fresh ink shall not fall continuously on the same surface of blanket. There is a third pair of cylinders which cuts off the sheet, and a fourth (in which, however, one cylinder is replaced by a brace of rollers) gives the first fold and shoots the doubled sheet in the circular cutter, which slits it into two papers, sending them on to be folded again separately and delivered in their respective places in piles at the side of the press; or the papers are rolled up exactly on the top of each other, six in number, and flown perfectly on the fly-board.
This machine printed and folded at the rate of more than 28,000 sheets an hour at the Centennial Exhibition, printing and folding at one time two copies of the Philadelphia Times. It is already in use in a dozen newspaper establishments in various parts of the world.
All these machines were in operation at the great Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. A fourth press exhibited,—claimed by its inventor, Mr. A. Campbell of New York, to be capable of printing much faster than any other,—was set up too late to prove its capacity by actual test. No press however, can be made more simple and with fewer parts than this.