Item of Interest July 22, 1933 Issue

Item of Interest

In the last issue of the Sentinel the process of preparing page of The Christian Science Monitor in the composing room was described, and we saw the page matrices or matsleave the roller and pass down a special chute to the stereotype department. In this department, as in the composing room, special blue-green lights are in use which have the effect of making the type stand out clearly so that the operators can read it even thought the letters are in reverse position. The stereotype room occupies a corner of the press room, but will be shut off from the rest of the room by a "curtain" made of glass and metal extending from the ceiling to about eight feet above the floor, thus allowing a free circulation of air at the floor level. An automatic machine for making plates is supplied at all times with stereotype metal—a combination of lead, antimony, and tin, in liquid form—which the machine delivers to the vertical cylinder on which the mats are placed. The metal is kept at about 600 degrees F., and has a variation of something like 20 degrees, which is governed by thermostatic control. Eight semicylindrical plates can be made each minute.

Each press is capable of printing a sixty-four page paper, the pages being two abreast so that the folder, which is part of the press, first folds the strip of pages in the middle, then cuts and assembles them all according to the order in which the plates were inserted, and automatically delivers the paper folded double to the conveyor, which carries them to the mailing room. Incidentally, the Monitor presses are operating more satisfactorily in their new quarters, where they have a more solid foundation than in their former location. They print and deliver 33,000 to 34,000 papers an hour.

The mailing room is adjacent to the press room, but on a higher level. Although many operations are carried on there, the mailing room is comparatively free from noise. The papers fresh from the press drop from the conveyor into bins, which can be wheeled to the mailing machine. There they are stacked in a rack and automatically fed to the machine which folds them with the wrappers required for mailing, puts stencil imprints thereon, thus addressing them, and delivers them at the rate of 10,000 an hour to the mailing sacks. The stencils must be stacked in the machien in order, in a vertical position, and must correspond with the town or city addresses on the mail sacks. Filled and closed at the top, each sack is conveyed by a belt conveyor to the mailing platform where it is delivered to the waiting trucks. Regarding the Publishing Society's volume of business The Printing Equipment Engineer for May wrote, "Its corps of about 700 workers handle in some way or other about 25 tons of mail which is sent out each week day to approximately 109 countries."

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