Operating the Machine
The character of the cutting depends upon, first, the machine, second, the knife, and third, the man.
Successful cutting is a fine manual art. The finest razor improperly stropped and used in unskilled hands does poor work. The finest cutting machine unintelligently operated will stultify the best efforts of the printing plant.
The machine that has the simplest mechanism evolved by long experience and study ensures the first safeguard of accuracy. The knife that fulfils the specifications given elsewhere furnishes the second. And third, the man whose standard of work is high, who is conscientious in following his instructions, who is big enough and broad enough to understand how important his position is, and how necessary, therefore, it is for him to coöperate with every other department in a friendly and intelligent manner, completes the tripod that can stand up successfully under any job.
A cutting machine is a sharp-edged tool and, therefore, dangerous when run by a careless or unskilled operator. "Look before you leap" applies especially to the cutting machine. Its action is powerful and quick. Accidents occur through failure of the operator to watch his own motions and because of the improper operation of the machine through failure of some of its parts. Sufficient safety devices to make all accidents impossible would render the cutting machine as useless as an axe in a velvet case. Accidents which occur from undue wear or neglect to oil are apt to happen. Two preventives are available: first, to train the operator to care; second, to provide as many safeguards as can be utilized and still permit commercially successful operation.
With the modern high-speed machine operating at from twenty-five to forty cuts a minute, the time consumed in the cutting room is not the time taken by the knife to pass through the stock, but rather the time getting the stock laid up and measured ready to cut. Consequently, these latter operations are the ones to study for savings.
The time and labor required to cut a job depends upon the number and kind of motions of the hands and body and feet that are made to get the stock ready and to take it away. The fewer motions necessary to do this and to operate the machine, the easier and pleasanter it is to work at a cutting machine.
Powdered chalk and naphtha put on the bright parts and nickel and allowed to stay over night will polish off in the morning and leave the machine appearing clean and free from rust.
The clamp strap ways should be kept clean and free from the fuzz from the cuttings and thick oil. This can be done by occasionally cleaning them out with kerosene.
If the oil gets in the friction brake band the machine may not stop promptly at the proper point. Throw off the driving belt, and throw on the starting lever to loosen the brake band; then pass a rag around under the band, between it and the clutch rings, so as to remove the oil, then throw off the starting lever. If a piece of waste is laid on the lower part of the friction brake band just next to the ring, it will keep it free from oil for some time.