From Xylographs to Lead Molds; A.D. 1440-A.D. 1921 Part 5

NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING PLATES

Mechanical production of any kind is an unsympathetic and inexorable thing, and the modern large daily newspaper, in its mechanical production, is unsympathetic and inexorable to the highest degree. It reproduces exactly and impartially from all the different material supplied to it.

Your ad-plate is locked into the form with the other matter composing the page. A hurried lock-up, and the form is molded into a mat and stereotyped. Fast presses and cheap ink do the rest.

If your ad does not show up well in the first few impressions run off, the press grinds on just the same, with little or no make-ready. Once they start, it is too late to stop to allow the press-room foreman to investigate why a certain ad does not print up well. The "Daily Bugle"

must get on the streets, if possible, before its compet.i.tors with the important scoop that the Beghum of Swat has just died. If you have supplied the best material for the newspapers to work with, the clean-cut reproduction of your advertis.e.m.e.nt is insured. If you have been penny-wise and pound-foolish in saving a few cents on your ad-plate, all the dollars you spent on art, typography and white s.p.a.ce for your ad are on the knees of the G.o.ds and liable to be spilled off the said knees, and your ad is messy looking when it appears. The advertiser invariably blames the newspaper and the newspaper pa.s.ses the buck on to the plate-maker. The printed appearance of the ad is largely determined by the kind of plate furnished to the newspaper.

The large daily newspapers are entirely dependent upon the stereotyping process for the necessary speed required in production.

They do not print directly from type or cuts. The big advantage of stereotyping in this connection lies in the fact that it is the quickest method of producing a solid, duplicate printing plate from an original molding form. After locking up a page form, it can be molded, the matrix dried and the plate cast and ready for the press in about ten minutes.

Therefore, only unmounted plates should be sent to the large daily papers and not wood mounted, as it takes too long for the heat to pa.s.s through the wood base in drying the mat.

The unmounted plate is placed on a metal base, (because heat pa.s.ses through metal quickly in drying the mat) and then locked in the form with the type and other matter composing the entire page. A mat is then molded from the complete form and a curved stereotype is cast from this page mat. It is from this curved full page stereotype that the large daily newspaper is actually printed.

Since they must duplicate the plates sent to them by the stereotyping process, your expensively prepared advertis.e.m.e.nt, if it is to appear sharp and clean in the valuable s.p.a.ce it uses, should be electrotyped by your plate-maker. A stereotype duplicated from an electrotype will print cleaner than a stereotype duplicated from a stereotype by reason of the fact that mats molded by the newspaper from electrotypes are sharper and deeper than when they are molded from stereotypes.

Electrotypes have a distinctly sharper and harder face and are deeper than stereotypes. The very nature of the process and materials used in their manufacture makes this superiority inevitable. Wax is used as the plastic medium in which to mold electrotypes, whereas for stereotypes paper is used. Sharpness and depth cannot be molded into paper as it can into wax.

Neither will stereotype metal poured by gravity against a paper matrix mold be as sharp and deep as copper deposited electrolytically on a wax mold.

It follows, therefore, that when an unmounted electrotype is supplied to the "Chicago Tribune" or the "New York Journal" or the "San Francisco Call" they are stereotyping your ad in the page form from a plate molded in wax directly from the original.

On the other hand, when you supply a stereotype of your ad to the large dailies this stereotype is already one step removed from the original master plate and means that two paper mats intervene between the original supplied to the plate-maker and the final stereotype of the page containing your advertis.e.m.e.nt. In short, they are duplicating a stereotype from a stereotype and each duplication means a loss in sharpness and depth; therefore they should be supplied with a sharp electrotype from which to make their final page mat.

Obviously when a stereotype is supplied to the large dailies they are working from a plate that is neither sharp nor deep to start with, as would be the case if you sent them an electrotype from which to work.

An electrotype is economy in the end and will save you grief, when the cost of s.p.a.ce is considered.

Should you desire economy, order your plate-maker to send mats--copy considered--to the large dailies. A mat is less expensive than a stereotype and will reproduce your advertis.e.m.e.nt equally as well.

When you send them a mat instead of an electro there is one more duplication for the newspapers to make in producing the final stereotype from which they print, but the mat which your plate-maker furnishes them is at least molded directly from the original plate, so that it is sharper and deeper than the mat the newspapers have to make when you furnish them a stereotype from which to work. When you furnish the large dailies with the mat they cast a flat stereotype first, which is locked up in the form with the other matter composing the page. This entire form is then molded into a mat and stereotyped.

The small dailies and country newspapers print directly from type and cuts. They use a flat-bed press. For this reason it is necessary that the advertising-plate or dealers cut which you furnish to them should be mounted type-high.

The best plate you can furnish them is none too good; their make-ready and the general handling of their material is not of the highest order in efficiency as compared to the large dailies, and it is entirely probable that even with a good sharp electrotype, your advertis.e.m.e.nt may not show to advantage. With a stereotype, the liability of smudgy printing is greatly enhanced.

The Rapid Electrotype Company knows the mechanical equipment of the different newspapers throughout the United States. It sends mounted plates to those papers that print directly from type and cuts, and unmounted plates to those that stereotype their forms. This detail is left entirely to their discretion. The names of the towns to which your advertis.e.m.e.nt or dealers-cut is to be shipped is all the information they require in order to determine whether or not to ship mounted or unmounted plates.

THE RAPID ELECTROTYPE COMPANY

The Rapid Electrotype Company of Cincinnati was organized in July, 1899, and incorporated under the laws of Ohio in May, 1902. It has been in service over a fifth of a century.

Prior to the organization of The Rapid Electrotype Company, electrotyping was, on the whole, a localized business. The Rapid Electrotype Company pioneered in the service of making and distributing newspaper advertising plates--electrotypes, aluminotypes, stereotypes, and mats--direct from its factory in Cincinnati to newspapers and dealers throughout the United States.

The originality of this service, intelligently rendered to advertising agencies and advertisers, was one of the reasons for the increase of their capacity from only five thousand square inches of plate matter daily in 1899 to one million square inches per day in 1921, and from an organization of only nine men to one of over two hundred and fifty, working in day and night shifts.

Their new factory is unquestionably the largest of its kind in the world, especially designed and equipped for the making and distribution of newspaper ad plates of all kinds. Over forty-five thousand square feet of floor s.p.a.ce is devoted to this service, and with their highly developed co-operative facilities they occupy a unique place in the advertising plans of many large national advertisers and advertising agencies.

FACTORY PRACTICE

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.

BLACK LEADING

The Rapid Electrotype Company has built a new type of machine for use in this important phase of the electrotyping art. It is a combination Dry-Wet Machine, designed by its own engineering staff.

Those familiar with electrotypes well know the superiority of the wet black leading process, especially for half-tones, stipple, Ben Day or fine type, where much of the detail and sharpness is lost in dry black leading, because of the crushing effect the brushes have on the wax mold. In this new type of black leading machine this fault is entirely eliminated, as the brushes never come in contact with the printing face of the mold; they merely polish the high built-up spots, thereby insuring better electrical conductivity to the wax, and a more uniform deposition of the copper sh.e.l.l.

Two of these especially designed machines are in constant operation in the ad department, which means the highest grade of advertising plates.

DEPOSITING THE Sh.e.l.l

Those who are not technically familiar with electrochemistry are p.r.o.ne to think that the length of time a mold is kept in the electrolytic bath, i. e., the copper bath, determines the thickness of the sh.e.l.l deposited thereon. As a matter of fact, one electrotyper may keep his molds in the copper bath for three hours and get only as thick a sh.e.l.l as another who keeps his in but two hours. The element of time does not determine the thickness nor quality of the sh.e.l.l deposited.

The determining factors in this phase of electrotyping are the composition of the electrolytic bath, its temperature, and the current density applied. In addition, the purity of the materials, the cleanliness of the batteries, the perfection of the electrical connections as well as the distance between the anode and the cathode are all matters of importance. These factors are all variables and must be confined between narrow limits.

This important phase of manufacture in The Rapid Electrotype Company is under the supervision of an electro-chemical engineer.

Plus this fact is the accuracy of mechanical operation in handling wax molds from the time they are put into the batteries until they are taken out with the sh.e.l.l deposited thereon and ready for tinning and backing-up.

The molded cases are suspended at regular intervals of twenty inches from an endless chain-conveyor operating directly over the batteries.

This conveyor carries the cases edge-wise through the electrolytic bath between two rows of anodes which are four inches apart. At the end of each battery the conveyor automatically lifts the cases out and over into the next battery in the series, of which there are seven.

The eighth tub contains pure running water for washing the case after the complete deposition of the sh.e.l.l.

The speed of this conveyor is regulated so that when the molded case has reached the end of its journey through the series of seven batteries, the other factors also being regulated, a sh.e.l.l of uniform thickness and texture throughout is deposited thereon.

This automatic handling of the cases in the batteries eliminates the necessity of the battery-man pulling the case out of the bath by hand from time to time in order to peel back a corner of the sh.e.l.l to see if it is thick enough, which is the common practice. In other words, the element of human guess-work is eliminated, and in addition, the items of time and handling are greatly reduced.

BACKING UP THE Sh.e.l.l