The greatest progress that has been made in recent years in the art
of printing is in the invention of the high speed press provided with
continuous paper.
Three French constructors, Messrs. Marinoni, Alauzet, and Derriey, have
brought this kind of apparatus to such a degree of perfection that
the majority of foreign journals having a large circulation buy their
presses in France. We reproduce in Fig. 1 a perspective view of the
Marinoni press, and in Fig. 2 a diagram showing the parts of the same.
In order to give a complete description of it, we cannot do better than
to reproduce the very interesting study that has been made of it by Mr.
Monet, a civil engineer.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--MARINONI'S ROTARY PRINTING PRESS.]
The roller, J (Fig. 2), is placed in the machine in the state in which
it is received from the paper manufactory. The paper unwinds, runs over
the rollers, e and e', which serve only for tautening it, and then
passes between the two cylinders, A and B. The cylinder, A, carries the
form, and B carries the blanket, and the paper thus receives its first
impression. It afterward passes between the cylinders, A' and B', and
receives an impression on the other side, the cylinder, A', carrying the
form, and B' the blanket. Being now printed on both sides, it passes
between the cylinders, KK', which cut it off and allow the sheet to
slide between the cords of the rollers. These latter lead the sheets
over the rollers, g h, on which they wind, one over the other, when the
rollers, a a', are in the position shown by unbroken lines in the cut.
The part of the machine that holds the rollers, g h, and the different
cords that wind over them, is the _accumulator_, and it is in this part
of the press that the sheets accumulate, one over the other, to any
number desired.
The size of the rollers, g h, and their distance apart are so regulated
that when the sheet reaches the accumulator, it falls exactly on those
that have preceded it. When the proper number of sheets is in the
accumulator (4 or 5 being the number most employed for afterward
facilitating the separation into packets on the receiving table), the
two small rollers, a a', advance over the rack, N, and the sheets,
instead of continuing to roll over into the accumulator, fall on the
rack and are deposited by it upon the receiving table, O.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--MARINONI'S PRESS.]
The rack having fallen twenty times, and deposited five sheets each
time, or one hundred in all, the table moves in such a way as to prevent
the sheets subsequently deposited from getting mixed with them. When the
rack has fallen twenty times, the table returns to its initial position.
The distributing rollers, D, come in contact with the inking rollers, I,
once during each revolution of the printing cylinders, and are mounted
on racking levers provided with regulating screws that permit of easily
regulating the amount of ink taken up. The supports of the inking
rollers are movable and can be made to approach or recede from the
distributing rollers, so as to still further vary the amount of ink
taken up by them.
The distributing rollers supply the ink to a roller, E, of large
diameter, which, having a backward and forward motion, begins to
distribute the ink and to transmit it to a second roller, F, of the same
diameter. This latter then spreads it over a metallic cylinder, G, which
is of the same diameter as the printing cylinders, and against which
revolve three distributing rollers, H, that have a backward and forward
motion.
Between the cylindrical inking table, G, and the type cylinder, there
are situated inking cylinders, T, of large diameter, that constantly
take up ink from the inking table and distribute it over the types.
The machine here described, when designed for printing large sized
journals, has cylinders whose circumference corresponds to the size of
paper for two widths of pages, and whose length is sufficient to allow
it to receive two forms. Each cylinder, then, carries four forms, or
eight in all, and prints two complete copies at each revolution.
The large sheet cut off by the cylinders, K K', contains, then, two
copies; and this sheet, on passing under the roller, f is again cut in
two by a disk which separates it in a direction perpendicular to the
cylinders.
To this press there may be added a mechanical folder of Mr. Marinoni's
invention, capable of folding a journal five times.--_Annales
Industrielles_.
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