Quote:
Originally Posted by steve B
Hey Ted - I've got to ask. Did the press guys ever pull the trick of telling you that you could tell the ink was mixed properly by holding your hand over it and feeling how warm it had become? (The obvious punchline is that they would slap your hand into the ink getting it all over , and that stuff is hard to clean off.) In our place it was almost an initiation. They never pulled it on a new guy or someone they didn't like.(There are far worse things for them) Once pranked you were "in"
It's great having Ted comment. I'm learning stuff. Especially the proper terms for stuff I know is done and why, but didn't know the technical name. Like trapping.
Steve B
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Thanks Steve and back atcha. Your input is fantastic.
I never had the honor of dipping my hands in ink, since I worked in the prepress department. I still had to go out on the press to look at issues with the plates and to help with verifying the color to the proof.
Now.....when I first started out as a rookie, I did have to chase down a "bucket of half-tone dots" because the pressman told me they needed more half-tones for the press. They also had me look for a "plate stretcher" because they couldn't get the colors in register on the make-ready sheets and that they needed to stretch the plate to get it in register. All in fun........I miss that family.
You mentioned that the make-ready sheets would not go to the cutters....what our guys would do is put the make-ready sheets on top of the paper load, after final printing, to keep dust, dirt, drinks, food, people's asses from sitting on the loads, etc... off of the good sheets to help eliminate any additional waste. Sometimes they would write across the sheets to let everyone know what was under the make-ready sheet as well. The make-ready sheets would go through the plant on top of the paper load all the way to the finish before it ended up in the scrap bin. Sometimes they would simply get mixed in to the good sheets after they came off of the press or when the straight cutter would jog the paper into the cutter. You pick up the first few sheets and sit them in the cutter, with the make-ready sheet still on top, turn your back to talk to some yapping co-worker complaining about his life, turn back around and pick up another few sheets, put them on top of the other sheets and there you have it, a make-ready sheet mixed in to all of the good sheets, cut, boxed and out the door with no one ever knowing.
Also, I just want to go back to a printers mindset. If a printer were to take something home, I guarantee that they would take the "perfect" printing over a mistake every time. They would be proud to show their family what they produced. Printers are very picky and passionate about the product they produce. Most of our guys or gals took a lot of pride in their work. They were journeymen and they wanted the work to be perfect. It was a competition between them to show who could produce a nicer product at a faster rate with minimal waste. Hand cuts would not have come from the printers that I knew and worked with. Off center or miscuts were common and were not avoidable all of the time, especially on the deeper sheets in the cutter, but they hated them. Once cut, it's too late, they're not printing them again. A good pressman would not like producing out of register cards, hickeys, missing colors, flopped backs, etc....they did love a misspelled name or word, because that came from my department and they would love to rub it in that we were idiots.
Every department had scrap factored in to the production of the final product. I cannot remember the percentage allowed for scrap, but it was minimal. You were paid good money to produce a product and it better by right and up and running quick. The faster it shipped, the faster the invoice went out.
Oh and by the way, the customer wanted everything perfect from the printer. No mistakes. Would you pay an invoice for a box of crap? Yes, "crap" is what it was before it was collected, not scrap.