Abstract: To eliminate space requirements of an additional separating device to cut a torn web of paper in a rotary printing machine, a paper cutter is integrated into the circumference of a guide or transport roller (1) in the form of a knife (12) smoothly merging with the circumference (2) of the roller (1), but pivotable outwardly of the circumference (compare FIGS. 2 and 3) if a "torn paper" condition is sensed. In normal operation, a cam (6) rotates with the roller (1) being carried along, for example by friction, by a stub shaft (4). Upon sensing a "torn paper" condition, an electromagnet (20) pulls a latch (17) in engagement with a ratchet stop (16) on the cam, inhibiting rotation of the cam with the roller (1) and causing a cam follower (8) to rise on a land (7) of the cam, thereby pivoting the knife out of circumferential position with respect to the roller and severing the paper web (5).

Abstract: To provide for a tight fit between adjacent tongues (4, 4') subdividing a doctor blade (1), one edge (9) of a tongue (4) facing a slit (5) between the tongues is coated with a material substantially softer than the material of the doctor blade, for example galvanically deposited copper, with a thickness which is in excess of the width of the slit (5) separating the adjacent tongues (4, 4'). Upon closing of the tongues with respect to each other, after having been spread, the tongues will shear off the softer material so that the then formed remaining separation between the tongues will have effectively or quasi zero dimension, thus forming a tight fit between the tongues, while still permitting individual adjustability with respect to a roller against which the doctor blade is to operate.

Abstract: A safety device has pivotally mounted rails for guarding impression cylinder nips in a sheet-fed rotary printing press. The guard rails are pivoted from a guard or safety position during maintenance to a second position away from the impression cylinder during printing to insure that the printed sheets are not smeared by the edges of the guard rails. The guard rails, however, also sense operator contact during maintenance to cause the inching drive of the press to shut off immediately. A hinged access cover or door on the press shields the impression cylinder and cooperating cylinder during printing, and is opened to perform maintenance. Opening of the access cover operates an electrical switch for shutting off the main drive of the press, and the access cover is mechanically connected to the guard rails by a resilient linkage which in turn causes pivoting of the guard rails toward their safety positions.

Abstract: A pair of supply belts (3, 4) pass vertically towards an open deflection drum (5) which has two peripheral deflection segments (6, 7), one (4) of the supply belts then is joined by another belt (9), the junction forming an inlet funnel or zone (14) which deflects a printed subject (1) clamped between the supply belts to a first belt system now formed by one of the supply belts and one (9) of the delivery belts. The other (3) of the supply belts passes vertically through the open drum and, in combination with a second delivery belt (10), receives those printed subjects (2) which are not deflected by the segments (6, 7), that is, which are in the path through the drum when the segments (6, 7) are outside the path through the drum.

Abstract: A job strip encoding printing process data is disposed on an indicia-free zone of an associated printing plate. The printing process data include process control data, press presetting data and organization data for the entire print order using the associated printing plate. Preferably, all of the important printing adjustments are computer controlled and the printing machine includes a scanner for automatically reading the job strip when the printing plate is clamped onto the plate cylinder of the printing machine. The job strip is not integral with the printing plate so that the printing process data are easily changed. The job strip, however, is attached to the printing plate and therefore the printing process data and associated printing plates are not mixed up in the print shop. The job strip is elongated and aligned parallel and adjacent to a longitudinal edge portion of the printing plate which is clamped to the plate cylinder.

Abstract: A vertically adjustable gripper support mechanism for the grippers of turning drums of perfecting presses wherein the sheet is turned by two correlatively cooperating gripper systems disposed on cam-controlled pivot shafts biased by return springs. An adjusting shaft is disposed concentrically within the pivot shaft and is rotatable by an adjusting wheel, the adjusting shaft being formed with axially spaced recesses corresponding to the number of gripper supports and having a plurality of arcuate adjusting surfaces preferably offset at 60.degree. in the peripheral direction to one another to provide a multistep vertical adjustment to the gripper support.

Abstract: In accordance with the invention a varnishing unit in a printing machine is provided which simultaneously varnishes and perfects printing sheets. The varnishing unit comprises a rotating impression cylinder in contact with a rotating varnishing cylinder to create a nip between the two cylinders through which sheets are individually drawn. In order to perfect each sheet at the nip, the impression cylinder has at least one plate or a blanket secured to its surface. Depending on whether a plate or a blanket is secured to the impression cylinder, an appropriate dampening and inking means is provided. Similarly, the varnishing cylinder is supplied a controlled quantity of varnish by a varnishing means.

Abstract: Register of sheets being transferred by a reversal drum (9), having suction grippers (16) to grip the trailing end (15) of a sheet (12) being transported and reversed between two printing stations (1, 2) is improved and assisted by positioning pricking pins (17) in or on the suction grippers (16), to prick into and engage the trailing end portions of the sheet being picked off an impression cylinder (5) of a first printing system (1) by the reversal and transport drum (9).

Abstract: To provide for transfer of folded products, such as folded printed sheets received from a printing machine, between storage bins and a conveyor transport system, transport sheets which, at least in part, are magnetizable, are retained in the storage bins; a transfer element (9) in form of an endless elongated belt or the like has electromagnets secured thereto which are selectively energized to pick up the transfer sheets. The transfer element or belt is guided in a path past a delivery end (7") of a storage holder, then into the path of the transport system (2, 3) for transfer of folded products (1) from or to the sheets, and return of the sheets to a receiving end of the storage bin, at which point the magnets are deenergized to release the sheets into the bin, and can continue to travel--while deenergized--in an endless path for subsequent pick-up of sheets.

Abstract: As ink is conveyed through the inking unit of a printing machine, a state of equilibrium occurs which ensures adequate inking of the printing plate during continuous printing. The equilibrium state includes different ink gradients for the respective printing zones superimposed on a uniform base level. In order to achieve the state of equilibrium rapidly and easily at the start of printing, an ink distribution is produced in the inking unit before printing closely matching the state of equilibrium for continuous printing. An accurately defined ink film distribution is initially fed to the inking unit rollers via the vibrator. Preferably, when the ink applicator rollers are thrown off of the plate cylinder and the sheet feed is off, a predetermined amount of ink is introduced to the inking unit. The vibrator is then shut off and the base level of ink is allowed to become uniformly distributed. Next the ink profile is set at the ink metering elements and the vibrator is turned on.

Abstract: To sense the positions of ink measuring strips on a printed sheet and to scan the ink measuring strips with a densitometer, the printed sheet is placed on a commerically available digitizing board of the kind including a manually operated stylus and the densitometer is mounted on the positioning head of an X-Y positioning mechanism secured to the digitizing board. Preferably, the printed sheet includes position indicating marks which may be scanned by the stylus so that the position and orientation of the printed sheet with respect to the digitizing board is sensed. For repetitive testing of a number of printed sheets using the same format or arrangement of ink measuring strips, the format referenced to sheet coordinates is recalled from computer memory and transformed to the coordinate reference of the digitizing board using coordinate transformation coefficients based on the sensed position of the printed sheet with respect to the digitizing board.

Abstract: In a paper transport conveyor from a sheet feeder to a printing machine, the sheets are underlapped for speed reasons and for this purpose, the sheets are held and transported in a defined position using a conveyor table to which a vacuum is applied. In order to optimize the feed register in the printing machine in all states of operation, an additional conveyor device holds the sheets at the front gauges and aligns them. The vacuum at the conveyor table is quantitatively variable and the vacuum is so controlled according to operation as to be applied when sheets are required to be held on the conveyor table but interrupted when its action would obstruct the sheet alignment on the conveyor table.

Abstract: To reduce the width of the groove (6,7) within which the end portions of rubber blankets (14) of a blanket cylinder are attached, and thus prevent oscillations occurring due to roll-off of the groove against another cylinder, which may likewise have a groove, the rubber blanket is formed to have a reinforcing strip which is shorter than the axial dimension of the rubber blanket, the rubber blanket being formed with converging sides, the slot width of the groove adjacent the circumference of the cylinder being narrow in the end regions to have the width of only about twice the width of the thickness of the rubber blanket. In some constructions, the rubber blanket is a composite blanket formed of a substrate and an ink transferring cover; the end portion of the rubber blanket, which fits within the groove, can be left free of the ink transferring rubber cover so that the width of the slot at the end portion can be narrowed even further to only about twice the width of the substrate.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for aligning and feeding sheets for printing presses having a conveyor for supplying the sheets individually from a feed stack to the front and side lays in a feed table of the press. The method includes the steps of causing the sheets to strike the front lays, drawing the sheets against a side abutment of the side lay, engaging the sheets from below utilizing a vacuum device and then again pressing the sheets against the front lays.The apparatus includes a vacuum device and front and side lays. The vacuum device includes suction arms disposed below the sheets and ahead of the front lays with respect to the direction of the sheet movement. The front lays are movable reciprocably in the direction of the sheet movement while the side lays are movable transversely to the direction of the sheet movement.

Abstract: An apparatus to obtain ink density data by scanning color measurement strips on a printed sheet has a densitometer mounted on a digitally-driven X,Y positioning mechanism, an optical sensor for detecting the position and orientation of the sheet with respect to the X,Y positioning mechanism, and a numerical computer for transforming the sheet coordinates of the color measurement strips to the X,Y coordinates of the X,Y positioning mechanism. Thus, the numerical computer can automatically position the densitometer to scan the color measurement strips. In a first embodiment, optical sensor arrays determine the position and orientation of the test sheet with respect to the X,Y positioning mechanism. In a second embodiment, the densitometer itself scans the edge portions of the test sheet to determine the position and orientation of the test sheet.

Abstract: A conveyor for sheets fed to or from a printing press in an overlapped stream, the table having longitudinal slots formed therein laterally spaced from one another. A perforated endless conveyor belt is trained over the table. An enclosed chamber extending substantially the length of the table communicates directly with the slots, the chamber being convergently shaped terminating at its lower end in a throat. An axial flow fan in the throat draws air through the perforations so that a stream of overlapped sheets on the belt will be held in contact therewith for transport from one end of the table to the other. The fan is chosen to have a flow characteristic such as to maintain the pressure differential across the fan approximately constant notwithstanding variations in the rate of air flow resulting from gaps in the stream. The belt is in two narrow, laterally spaced sections dimensioned to fit into the slots.

Abstract: To provide for an easily replaceable attachment of a printing cylinder (11) on a shaft (12), the shaft is formed as a stub shaft with a flange (13) projecting therefrom, and a disk-shaped groove or recess or bore is formed in the end face (14) of the milling roller, into which the flange is fitted by an interference fit. In order to provide for ease of engagement of the interference fit, the flange and/or the end face of the roller is undercut by a groove spaced somewhat from the fitting engagement surfaces to form a resilient lip (16) which is subjected to the interference fit. The flange and the milling roller are connected by one or more clamping screws or bolts (18).

Abstract: The invention relates to an inking mechanism for letterpress and offset printing machines comprising a vibrator having a plurality of discs which are disposed side by side and which are adapted to reciprocate individually and independently of one another between a duct roller and a transfer roller, and the width of each of which corresponds to a specific inking zone. The disc each consist of a middle part and an outer ring with a covering and are disposed side by side without gaps on a stationary carrier tube. Each middle part is mounted movably on the carrier tubes and has a circular outer periphery on which the outer ring is rotatably mounted and a drive for the individual movement of the middle part is provided inside each disc.

Abstract: An inking unit for a rotary offset press wherein transfer and applicator rolls are normally externally accessible only after pivoting around one or more non-displaceable transfer rolls, or after the removal of such rolls, including at least two applicator rolls mounted in pivoted levers and having provision for engaging and disengaging companion transfer rolls, the pivoted levers of the applicator rolls being mounted on eccentric bushings having provision for adjusting the pivoted levers relative to engaging the companion non-displaceable transfer roll, characterized by a first transfer roll engaging a pair of inner applicator rolls and all the other displaceable transfer rolls being mounted for engagement with the non-displaceable transfer rolls in a single mounting arm, with the mounting arm being mounted on an eccentric collar disposed centrally on the axis of the non-displaceable transfer roll, and with the arm being pivotable through 180.degree.

Abstract: A device for measuring pressure between two cylinders of a press includes a plate mounted to the end of a journal of one of the cylinders in a position perpendicular to the cylinder axis, and a set of electrical proximity sensors measuring the tilting of the plate as a result of slight bowing of the cylinder in response to changes in applied pressure. The proximity sensors are disposed at diametric locations at a substantial radius with respect to the cylinder axis, and an electrical circuit combines signals from the proximity sensors in such a way as to cancel signals generated in response to axial shifting of the cylinder to which the plate is mounted. Preferably the sensors are mounted in the common plane including the two cylinders and a set of sensors is disposed on each side of the plate. Additional sensors can be used to independently measure the pressure applied by a third cylinder engaging the cylinder to which the plate is mounted.