PRINTING FACILITY IN JEFFERSON CITY, MO

THE MAN ROLAND PRESS

Weighing in at 183.5 tons, this new press has many more capabilities than what you have seen until now.


Not only is there be a new look to printing, color is also available throughout your entire paper. Most cold offset presses have limited color capacity, but with the four towers having Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black capabilities, your publication can be very colorful.

The time it takes to print the paper will be cut in half for many reasons. Reel Stands in the bottom floor directly under the press hold two rolls of paper, and when one roll is running low, the second one is right there to continue the job without stopping the press. Plus the four towers print four pages (front and back) at the same time.

Finally, the new press can print 70,000 newspapers per hour. This is approximately three times the speed of our old press. This allows more time for commercial print jobs on the new press as well
.The new press is also run on a computer. Pressmen run the press from a control room where they can control the ink and water for even coverage on each page, registration for a crisp, clear image, and control the tension and folding as the paper is fed through the press.

PREPARATION

Plates are installed to each tower to transfer the image to the paper. When all towers are being run, up to 64 plates can be used. 16 plates per tower, 4 plates per color. Up to four plates are made for each page with full color.



Before the press is ready to run, ink must be distributed throughout the towers, along with the water to keep the ink on the plates consistent. The water must be chilled to 58 degrees in order to properly run the press, which is done in a separate room. Ink is stored on the bottom floor of the building in four separate tanks. The three color tanks (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) are stored where the paper is stored, while the black tank is stored in a separate room, and is much larger than the color tanks.

Paper is fed through the floor from the reel stands. It is then fed through the press tower where the plates have been installed. The image from the plate is then transferred to the paper. The diagram shows the cylinders on each side of the paper pressing against each other. The plate cylinders, on the outside, press against the blanket cylinder, which transfers the ink to the paper. The blanket cylinder on the other side of the paper presses against the other to print the other side of the page, as well as help feed the paper through the press.

This makes printing sections much faster and more efficient.
As your publication is being printed, QTI cameras show the pressmen in the control room how well the image is being printed.

Two rolls of paper are loaded to the reel stand using a track on the floor to guide the roll. Once loaded, paper is fed up through the ceiling to the press on the floor above. As one roll runs low, the second roll is ready to take over by simulating it’s speed and attaching to the first roll. This process eliminates stopping the press and cuts down on wasted paper.

The QTI camera system contains two different types of cameras. One acts as a color registration system. Dots located on the bottom left hand side of the paper line up to show if the registration is correct (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black dots). If any of the dots happen to not line up with the others, the QTI system adjusts the particular color that is out of register in order to line up the colors again. The second camera reads the cutoff registration. Below the registration dots on the bottom left hand corner of the page, are three dots that shows the cutter where to cut each paper. With the QTI camera system watching registration and cutting the paper, the pressmen can watch other processes while printing at a very quick pace.

Once your publication is printed and out of the top of the tower, it is guided to the folder. The paper is pulled down and folded in half through the top, as shown in the picture. It is then rolled onto a cylinder where the paper is cut, folded and inserted into the other sections of the publication being printed. Once the pages are completely assembled, it goes to a conveyer belt and sent to the control room. In the control room, the pressmen have the ability to determine the amount of ink and water going through the press, as well as check the registration of the color image, and making sure the paper is feeding through the web and the folder is working properly. This is done with touch screen computers.



The cut and folded newspaper run through the control room between the two control desks for the pressmen to take a copy and look over the pages before going to the mailroom.