“Each Machine is furnished with Roller Moulds, two sets of Roller Stocks, Blankets and Band; also, Fly Wheel and Stand, if to be driven by hand power; or Counter Shaft, two Hangers and Pulley if by steam power.
“The patent single large cylinder printing machine. This machine is particularly adapted to book and fine newspaper work. It has a perfect registering apparatus and sheet-flyer; also adjustable iron bearers, so that stereotype may be worked with the same facility and beauty as type forms. One boy is required to lay on the sheets, and the press may be driven by man or steam-power. With the same attendance, it will print twice as fast as any bed and platen machine, and equally as well in every respect; say from 1,000 to 2,000 impressions in an hour, according to the size of the press, and the quality of the work desired. Vulcanized India rubber impression-cloth for these presses is now furnished; and as it is not readily indented by the type, forms of different sizes may be worked without any change of blankets. Overlays are conveniently made on the rubber, and may be removed by a wet sponge. To prevent noise, buffers are applied as in the double cylinder machine.”
An artist’s drawing-room completes this department. And, in a separate building—to which no form of fire is ever admitted, unless it be in the chance visit of the watchman’s lantern to the premises, which, like all the other parts of the establishment, are equally and agreeably tempered by warm air, and which, unlike all the other rooms, are bright, clean, lively-looking apartments, and exhale a delicious fragrance of fresh-cut wood and cedar-shavings, are the carpenter’s-shops, in which every species of wooden work requisite to the printers’, binders’, and booksellers’ trades is prepared, among which are included neatly finished pairs of type-cases, turned out at the rate of fifty pair every week, printer’s desks, and all the other requisites of the printing office.
PATTERN ROOM.
Here is also the pattern-room, where, by dint of self-acting drills, saws, planes, and the like, wooden patterns are manufactured from the neat and accurate designs of the drafting-rooms, of every portion of the machinery used, in accordance to and close imitation of which the castings, forgings, and finishing of all the work is accomplished to perfection.
With this department, the survey of the Broome street manufactories and saw-works is terminated. The Gold street establishment is principally applied to the storing and exhibition of all the various articles coming under the head of letter-press, compositors’, warehouse, welting, and bookbinders’-tools departments—and here is kept ready, at a moment’s notice, a large assortment of hand-presses, copying-presses, ruling, cutting, and piercing machines, in great variety and equal excellence, of all prices. In this building, moreover, are manufactured the beautiful and excellent vertical steam-engines from five horse-power, 6 inch cylinders, and 10 inch stroke, up to fifteen horse-power, 11 inch cylinders, and 22 inch stroke, the largest of which are in use in the Herald, Tribune, and Sun offices, for putting in motion the large fast printing machines, by which those largely circulated journals are thrown off daily in huge editions with unparalleled rapidity. Here also are built the portable steam-engines from 3 to 4 horse-power, with vertical tubular boilers; and the hydrostatic presses, for the finishing of printed sheets, which have come into so general and wide a field of operation within the last few years.
The following is a correct and beautifully finished representation of the great fast printing eight-cylinder machine in the vault of the Sun office in full operation; without which the end and object of this paper would be incomplete.
This immense printing machine is 33 feet long, 14 feet 8 inches high, and 6 feet wide. It has one large central cylinder, on which the type is secured, and eight smaller cylinders arranged around it, at convenient distances. Eight persons supply the eight small cylinders with the sheets, and at each revolution of the large cylinder eight impressions are given off, the sheets being delivered in neat order by the machine itself. The limit to the speed is in the ability of the eight persons to supply the sheets. At the rate of 2,500 sheets to each, the press would give off the unparalleled number of 20,000 printed impressions per hour. The press is used exclusively for newspapers, or similar printing.
