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.
[Illustration: 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.