Developing and serving an ever increasing volume of business has
brought about a specialization in the factory practice of The Rapid
Electrotype Company. It has kept pace with the demands upon its
production and has made improvements in manufacturing methods designed
to cut-corners in cost of manufacture, to be shared with its
customers, and to make its service truly Rapid for all emergencies,
without sacrificing quality.
Its commercial job-plate department is a separate and distinct unit
from the newspaper advertising-plate department.
The character of the respective requirements of commercial job-plates
and newspaper advertising plates make this departmental production
advisable.
A lead-molding press, built by The F. Wesel Mfg. Co., weighing over
thirty-thousand pounds, and developing two thousand tons pressure per
square inch on a thirty inch hydraulically operated ram is used in the
job-plate department. On this press are duplicated, from the finest
screen half-tones, the highest quality electrotypes and nickeltypes to
be used in three and four color process printing.
The preponderating volume of its business, however, is the production
of newspaper electrotypes, and it is in this department that The Rapid
Electrotype Company has made distinct improvements in manufacturing
practice by methods and machinery designed and constructed by its own
engineers in its own machine shop.