Jobbing machines

Small machines constructed specially for the printing of job-work. They are intended to execute every variety of job that was formerly done on the hand-press, but with much greater economy, rapidity, and ease in working. Some of them are made to work cards only, at a very high speed. There are many now produced which print any kind of job at a speed, by hand, of ten to twelve hundred per hour. Jobbing machines may be either on the platen or cylinder principles; instances of the former are the American Degener and Weiler machine, and the English Cropper machine, q.v.

The characteristics of a good jobbing machine are, in addition to its being constructed on proper mechanical principles, by good workmen and in sound materials—its strength, its being well fitted up, non-liability to get out of order, facility of working, freedom from unnecessary and complicated wheels, straps, &c., so that a workman may easily understand every part of it, an arrangement for stopping the cylinder, to prevent the blanket being uselessly inked or waste sheets run through, its portability, and capability of being worked on an ordinary floor without causing vibration, facility in making ready a forme, speed, time allowed for feeding in, minimum of concussion of the bed at the end of the ribs, the precision of its register, freedom from noise in working, the fewness, simplicity, and accessibility of the working parts, clearness and distinctness of impression, perfect distribution of ink, &c., &c.

It would, perhaps, be unreasonable to expect all these “points”of perfection in any one machine, but as each of them is of great importance, and contributes to the aggregate value of the article, purchasers should endeavour to select those only which most nearly approach to the perfection which would characterise any machine which should possess to the full every recommendation we have enimierated.