Pressman
Disclaimer: Kids! Don't try this at home!
The printing business has interested me a bit, for the graphics and
pretty pictures, and because sometimes people believe what they read,
if for no other reason that they saw it in print. I've have several
friends who've had small job print shops, and several friends who've
found a niche as graphic artists. From hanging out with these guys, I'd
learned a bit about spec-ing and sticking type, fonts, layout and
paste-up, burning plates, ink pastes, the knife, the jogger, the
folder, the stitching machine, and some of the things that are peculiar
to the printing business. So, when I found that I could get a chance to
work at Creative Graphics, I was taken with the thought of an artsey
kind of a job that wouldn't require a suit and tie. Imagine my
surprise!
Several jobs that I've had the privilege to learn have been from top to bottom, and this was one of those. The shop foreman walked me out to the shop floor, explaining that there would soon be a paper delivery, and that I would be unloading and stocking the paper. Some of the paper, for the flat-bed press, came in large flat bundles that could be moved with a forklift or a palette jack. I was given a heavy pair of leather gloves and a large steel wrecking bar and was left on a loading dock beside some roll-up doors wondering what the hell this has to do with graphics or creativity. A semi-truck soon backed up to the loading platform, the doors opened, and the truck driver began rolling rolls of paper at me that were about four feet wide and six feet in diameter. The wrecking bar could be used to try to slow the paper, and my hand could be used like the calipers on disk brakes in a car. The latter method of trying to slow the webs of paper had the distinct disadvantage of subjecting my hands to some serious paper cuts, even though I was wearing heavy leather gloves, I wore out a pair of gloves almost every day. I got all of the web press paper put into rows along the back wall of the shop, and caught my breath. The next thing that I tried was the baler; after printing, the printed sheets must often be trimmed, which results in a lot of strips of paper. One nice thing about all of the scrap strips was that I could take them and make note pads by painting one side of a stack of scrap with some rubbery goop, so I had plenty of damn note pads for a while, some even printed with catchy slogans, phrases, and logos. But there was a boatload of scrap strips, much more than the demand for note pads could absorb, so the surplus was put into the baler where it was compressed into a bale the size of a cotton bale and weighing around two tons! When the baler was full, the bale could be ejected, and one didn't want to get in front of it. Neither did one want to get in front of the rolling paper for the web press. I'm still skeptical that the pen is mightier than the sword, but a couple of tons of paper sure can squash you flatter than a bug.
The next thing was burning plates, which was done with a Vitek camera that uses very bright light to take a picture onto an aluminum alloy plate. The plate is then acid etched kind of. After etching, the plates were put onto the appropriate places for a seven-color litho process. This is one long mother of a press, and does nice printing like one sees in glossy magazines. Getting all of the plates in, then inking-up, then roll two big damn rolls of paper over to the web press jacking them up to feed in. There is a short run to see that the images are aligned, the paper is feeding ok, and the ink is ok. This press kind of sounds like a jet plane taking off, a loud turbine whine. After the test run, the press run might take up to three days, stopping for more paper. There is a way to splice the paper so that re-threading the paper isn't necessary.
The Knife, or the paper cutter was a status job there because it is possible to screw-up a lot of product with one cut. The bindery had machines like the folder, that could fold and staple, and the stitcher for making books. The other press that I liked there was a large flatbed press that printed single sheets and had vacuum suckers like an octopus.
There was a printing job that was "overflow" from the GPO (Government Printing Office.) I think that it was for a million and a half books of food stamps. Usually, the commercial printing jobs do a 10% overrun to allow for printing and cutting errors and still deliver the desired amount. This job, however, some of the guys decided to print maybe 200% of the contract. Some time after the printing was done, a "special typewriter" disappeared, the machine that was used to type the serial numbers on the stamps. The stamps go for fifty cents on the dollar on the street, so I figure whoever got away with that got about 0-0k. I don't know if that is any less of a grift that printing money outright, but the level of printing skill is much less than printing currency.
Disclaimer: Kids! Don't try this at home!
Several jobs that I've had the privilege to learn have been from top to bottom, and this was one of those. The shop foreman walked me out to the shop floor, explaining that there would soon be a paper delivery, and that I would be unloading and stocking the paper. Some of the paper, for the flat-bed press, came in large flat bundles that could be moved with a forklift or a palette jack. I was given a heavy pair of leather gloves and a large steel wrecking bar and was left on a loading dock beside some roll-up doors wondering what the hell this has to do with graphics or creativity. A semi-truck soon backed up to the loading platform, the doors opened, and the truck driver began rolling rolls of paper at me that were about four feet wide and six feet in diameter. The wrecking bar could be used to try to slow the paper, and my hand could be used like the calipers on disk brakes in a car. The latter method of trying to slow the webs of paper had the distinct disadvantage of subjecting my hands to some serious paper cuts, even though I was wearing heavy leather gloves, I wore out a pair of gloves almost every day. I got all of the web press paper put into rows along the back wall of the shop, and caught my breath. The next thing that I tried was the baler; after printing, the printed sheets must often be trimmed, which results in a lot of strips of paper. One nice thing about all of the scrap strips was that I could take them and make note pads by painting one side of a stack of scrap with some rubbery goop, so I had plenty of damn note pads for a while, some even printed with catchy slogans, phrases, and logos. But there was a boatload of scrap strips, much more than the demand for note pads could absorb, so the surplus was put into the baler where it was compressed into a bale the size of a cotton bale and weighing around two tons! When the baler was full, the bale could be ejected, and one didn't want to get in front of it. Neither did one want to get in front of the rolling paper for the web press. I'm still skeptical that the pen is mightier than the sword, but a couple of tons of paper sure can squash you flatter than a bug.
The next thing was burning plates, which was done with a Vitek camera that uses very bright light to take a picture onto an aluminum alloy plate. The plate is then acid etched kind of. After etching, the plates were put onto the appropriate places for a seven-color litho process. This is one long mother of a press, and does nice printing like one sees in glossy magazines. Getting all of the plates in, then inking-up, then roll two big damn rolls of paper over to the web press jacking them up to feed in. There is a short run to see that the images are aligned, the paper is feeding ok, and the ink is ok. This press kind of sounds like a jet plane taking off, a loud turbine whine. After the test run, the press run might take up to three days, stopping for more paper. There is a way to splice the paper so that re-threading the paper isn't necessary.
The Knife, or the paper cutter was a status job there because it is possible to screw-up a lot of product with one cut. The bindery had machines like the folder, that could fold and staple, and the stitcher for making books. The other press that I liked there was a large flatbed press that printed single sheets and had vacuum suckers like an octopus.
There was a printing job that was "overflow" from the GPO (Government Printing Office.) I think that it was for a million and a half books of food stamps. Usually, the commercial printing jobs do a 10% overrun to allow for printing and cutting errors and still deliver the desired amount. This job, however, some of the guys decided to print maybe 200% of the contract. Some time after the printing was done, a "special typewriter" disappeared, the machine that was used to type the serial numbers on the stamps. The stamps go for fifty cents on the dollar on the street, so I figure whoever got away with that got about 0-0k. I don't know if that is any less of a grift that printing money outright, but the level of printing skill is much less than printing currency.
Disclaimer: Kids! Don't try this at home!