11. 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 space 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 shell.
Two of these especially designed machines are in constant operation in the ad department, which means the highest grade of advertising plates.
DEPOSITING THE SHELL
Those who are not technically familiar with electrochemistry are prone 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 shell 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 shell as another who keeps his in but two hours. The element of time does not determine the thickness nor quality of the shell 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 shell 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 shell.
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 shell 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 shell 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 SHELL
Backing-up the shells with the metal base, i. e., casting, is done automatically by The Rapid Electrotype Company.
A rotary casting-table with a capacity of ten pans revolves around its axis on a plane that brings each pan immediately below a spout through which the required metal is automatically flowed from the bottom of the metal pot on the tinned shell placed therein. When the required metal backing has been flowed, the table turns to bring the next pan with its shell under the metal-spout. The amount of metal flowed is exactly regulated. As the casting table completes a circuit, the first shell backed up has cooled so that it can be removed to the scrubbing machine.
This method, of course, eliminates the hand-ladling of hot metal from the metal-pot to the casting-table, as is the ordinary practice, and obviates any possibility of the oxidized metal or dross on the surface getting into the casts, besides effecting a marked economy in time and handling. In addition, it casts the plates flat, thereby eliminating about 75 per cent of the finishing, which, of course, means a better printing plate. Three of these machines are used.
The Rapid Electrotype Company developed and built these casting-machines in its own machine shop and owns the patents covering them.
THE ALUMINOTYPE PROCESS
The development, perfection and introduction of the Aluminotype Process for duplicating a printing surface in a solid piece is one of the outstanding accomplishments of The Rapid Electrotype Company, and marks a distinct step in advance of the other and older methods used in the graphic arts, for certain classes of printing.
Aluminotypes are much harder than an electrotype or stereotype and have as sharp and deep a printing face as an electrotype. The Aluminotype process will reproduce as sharp and clear as the electrotyping process an eighty line screen half-tone, which is really too fine a screen for newspaper printing.
A distinct advantage Aluminotypes have is in the item of weight. An Aluminotype, unmounted, weighs only one quarter as much as an unmounted electrotype or stereotype of the same size. When mounted on a wood base an Aluminotype weighs just one half as much as an electrotype or stereotype of the same size mounted on wood. In a national advertising campaign where a general list of newspapers is used Aluminotypes, by reason of their light weight, effect a marked saving in parcel-post or express charges. This saving in postage is especially noticeable in the case of foreign country newspaper campaigns.
In addition, because of their toughness, a saving can be made in packing Aluminotypes, inasmuch as they do not require the expensive precautions in packing to avoid injury in transportation that electrotypes or stereotypes do. They will not bend; their printing face cannot be injured by the ordinary mishaps attendant upon handling in transportation. For all practical purposes it can be said that Aluminotypes are indestructible.
MATRICES
The ordinary practice followed in making mats is to use an electrotype or stereotype pattern plate made from the original form. Sometimes the original itself is used.
The first mat molded from an electrotype pattern plate will be sharp. The next one molded will be a little less sharp than the first. The third one molded will be slightly less sharp than the second one. In other words, with every succeeding mold, the electrotype or stereotype pattern plate is mashed a little by the pressure of the matrix press until it has to be discarded and a new one used.
The five-thousandth mat made by the Rapid Electrotype Company from the same pattern plate is as sharp as the first one molded. This is because an
aluminotype pattern is used from which to mold.
Aluminotypes will not mash under the pressure of the matrix press, as they are much harder than electrotypes.
THE SHIPPING DEPARTMENT
The shipping department of The Rapid Electrotype Company is one of the most important and highly systematized in the entire organization, and in the manner of handling orders for distribution to newspapers in large campaigns or in making bulk shipment direct to the advertisers is unique.
It is in this department that the packing and routing of advertising plates to newspapers or dealers is done. A system of triple checking each item of all orders precludes, as far as is humanly possible, any error in filling accurately all specifications.
This brochure was compiled by H. C. Forster of The Rapid Electrotype Co.