Stereotyping accomplishes this purpose in two ways; it can make a semi-circular plate or a tubular plate. In the first case, which is the more usual method, the printing cylinder in the press is of double size and will contain two full newspaper pages on its circumference. In the second, adapted to a new form of press, the page encircles the whole cylinder. The process of transforming a flat surface into a circular one was long done by hand, and in a great many offices continues so to be done. On the surface of the square page of type is placed a damp mould, resembling papier-mâché, composed of several overlying sheets of thin tissue and heavy backing papers; the type with the mould on it is placed inside a steam press, when it is effectually squeezed into the face of the type and dried by heat at the same time. A hard mould is thus made in about six minutes, showing the impressions of the newspaper page in intaglio. This dry mould is of course flexible and can be placed in a cylindrical casting box and cylindrical plates having an exact reproduction of the type surfaces on their curved exteriors are rapidly cast and sent down to the machine-room. It is from these curved plates that the newspapers themselves are actually printed and not, as many people naturally suppose, from the type itself.
The hand production of stereotype plates is already out of date in most progressive offices. The first improvement is the substitution of a dry “flong,” as the paper mould is technically called, thus eliminating the five or six minutes spent in drying at the cost to some extent of accuracy, a fault which is in process of diminution. The second is the use of elaborate machines called variously autoplates, junior autoplates or multiplates according to size and design. These also arise from the newspaper passion for speed and they carry out automatically the casting, trimming and planing to a true edge of stereoplates, which was formerly carried out slowly by hand. To see a double autoplate turning out these monstrous heavy page-sized plates complete at the rate of six a minute gives one an impression of an intelligence also something akin to human. The only limit to their speed is the necessity for allowing the metal of the plates to cool sufficiently during the process to ensure that their cylindrical accuracy will be exact before they start on their journey to the machine-room. In a few minutes later these same plates will be revolving on a fast modern press at the rate of 16,000 revolutions an hour with a surface speed of rotation of approximately twenty-two feet per second. The degree of accuracy of plate-casting required in order to get good printing at this rate of production is very great and has only been effectively secured in very recent times.
Before proceeding to examine the habits and constitution of the printing-press itself let us take a peep inside a modern press room. In the first place it is almost sure to be irregular in shape and though very large and high not large enough or high enough to hold comfortably all the machinery that is in it. Expansion is the law of a newspaper’s existence and hardly any newspaper ever succeeds in building itself a machine cellar, which it will not ultimately grow out of. The difficulty and expense of acquiring new printing press accommodation in crowded and valuable areas assures an irregular shape to most modern machine rooms. Imagine an immense cellar perhaps twenty to thirty feet high with huge irregular piles of machinery reaching almost to the ceiling. There is no general lighting, for the path of the rays from the ceiling lights is broken up in all directions by the tall presses, but everywhere there are bright handlights conveniently placed so as to illuminate instantaneously every square inch of the masses of metal work. In some cases lights are turned on for the moment in the central parts of the gaunt machines themselves. Everywhere on the outside of the presses are to be seen handles and bells and indicators so that to the uninitiated there seems to be no central point of control, no pineal gland where the soul of things is situated.
Just before press time in a big office order begins to appear. The men group themselves systematically at various stations round the presses, which are half ready to start. That is to say, that the machine is more than half clothed with the plates of those pages, which have been the earliest to go to press. Then comes a clang, indicating from the stereotype room above that the last plates are cast and probably on their way. Down the hoist they come singly, almost too hot to be handled. One by one the cellar-hands take them and fit them on the plate cylinders, where the turning of a single cog fits each into position. A big double sextuple machine such as the one illustrated (Fig. 2), printing a twelve-page paper, will want eight plates of the last page to start it, so that this last operation may take as many minutes. Then the lever is pressed down and the printing begins with a sound like a sustained purring, punctuated by regular sobbing. In this respect the latest presses are showing marked improvement with every fresh design and the noise is by no means overwhelming. A few years ago rapid printing in great masses involved considerable distress to the ears for any one forced to remain for very long downstairs in the printing cellar.
Fig. 2.—This Illustration of a Skeleton Side Elevation of a Modern Double-Sextuple Newspaper Printing Machine made for the Daily Mail, is reproduced from a drawing kindly supplied by Messrs. Joseph Foster & Sons, of Preston.
Explanation of figures in drawing:—A B C D E F, six reels of paper in position for printing; G H I J, four reels of paper ready to come into position; K L M N O P, six double pairs of printing and impression cylinders; Q R, assembling points, where on each side three printed sheets come together for the purpose of being cut and folded; S T, two folding apparatus; U V W X, two pairs of inking apparatus carrying ink from the ink-boxes by reciprocating rollers to the printing cylinders of the lower tiers. (The inking mechanism for the higher tiers is omitted.) Y Z, delivery of printed papers from each side.
There are now-a-days so many distinct varieties of printing-press available and used for newspaper printing that it is a matter of some difficulty to select a suitable type as representative. I have chosen two, which are here illustrated. One is the double-sextuple press recently installed by Messrs. Joseph Foster & Sons in the office of the London Daily Mail (Fig. 2). It is not by any means the largest in the world but it is the latest in design and a typical fast rotary press for rapid work. The other (Fig. 3) is a typical small press such as a provincial evening paper would find convenient. The small illustration (Fig. 1) above, shows the end-on section XYZ of a semi-cylindrical plate of large size compared with the smaller sized section of a tubular plate M, where a single page of the paper to be printed goes completely round the circle, except for a narrow margin at the bottom of the page, a space, which is taken up on the cylinder by clamps, which hold the plate firmly.
On the double-sextuple machine here illustrated by a section of the machine from the side the reader will observe that it is really a combination of six separate machines arranged in three tiers. The paper is carried in six huge reels, three at each end of the press. The paper in the course of printing comes from the reels at each end to the central portion of the press down into the four folding mechanisms in the centre of the press, where they are automatically folded and delivered ready for sale.