New printing Videos
A couple of new printing videos that may be of interest. The first is Thornwillow Press that incorporates engraving, letterpress, envelope making and book binding:
http://thornwillow.com/about-us.html?subscribed
and the second is how Model Railroader magazine is printed at Quad Graphics. Al Kalmbach started MR in the 1930s, printing the first issues on a hand fed C&P. The magazine grew and Al moved on to flatbed presses, Linotypes and a full shop. He went to rotary presses using curved electrotypes and when Dupont introduced the Dycril photopolymer plate in the 1960s, Al was one of the first publication printers to convert to to that system. MR is now out sourced to Quad Graphics, and this may be an eye opener for those who have never seen a large printing plant in operation:
http://mrr.trains.com/series/mr-insider/2015/04/mr-insider-exclusive-pri...
The Quad Graphics one is really fascinating from a logistics point of view. In a previous life, I was in charge of asset and inventory management in a semi-closed system, and we still had a heck of a time keeping everything reconciled for any reasonable period of time. I have nothing but respect for the people that put together a system that can make an operation like that tick along so smoothy. It also makes me realize that the days of mass-produced printed matter are probably coming to an end, there’s just too many moving parts for a modern continuous-growth-oriented-pressed-suit-benz-driving business person to comprehend.
The Model Railroad video left out a bunch of stuff, like making the plates, how the MR staff puts together the magazine before sending the files off to the printer, etc. And the one comment that was made that they didn’t identify the railroad that serves Quad was amusing. They should have shown the switch engine, the crew spotting the cars etc and skip the printing stuff. And the woman who took us through the plant didn’t have a clue what she was seeing. Poor Harry Quadracci built the largest privately owned printing company in the US from an 11 employee start in 1971 only to die at age 66 in a drowning accident in 4 1/2 feet of water back in 2002.
Wow! What a flood of memories. When I was a production manager at Meredith Corp. I spent years traveling to Quad Graphics’ various Wisconsin plants to quality control the printing of various magazines and catalogs. The Sussex plant was their second and is relatively (in Quad terms) modest in size.
Quad’s megaplant is located about an hour north of there in Lomira, WI. I believe that it is the largest printing plant in the Americas. Absolutely AWESOME!
So large, in fact, that two trains of paper are unloaded INSIDE the plant at the same time. The trains are parked side by side and in alignment. The first train is unloaded just as in the video. When the railcar is emptied the door on the other side is opened and the outer door of the railcar next to it of it is opened and another bridge/ramp is placed between the two cars and the second car is then unloaded through the first car! An absolutely incredible feat in efficiency and logistics.
The 12-story tall storage facility is totally robotic with ‘maybe’ three live human beings in the whole storage facility.
Just to a little extra tidbit, the rotogravure presses in this plant are six-stories tall. This plant is mostly dedicated to catalogs and color newspaper inserts and probably chews up at least a million pounds of paper a day.
So….thriving in that world for a few decades probably had a lot to do with the satisfaction I get from handsetting type and printing things leisurely by hand. It has always been my connection to reality.
Rick
WOW, I do hope heaven is a lot like Thornwillow Press!