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Sunday Supplement: 1926

        For another view click here.
1926. "Rotogravure press, Lanman Engraving Co." Printing the Sunday, Aug. 29 "Pictorial Section" of the Washington Post. 8x10 glass negative. View full size.

        For another view click here.

1926. "Rotogravure press, Lanman Engraving Co." Printing the Sunday, Aug. 29 "Pictorial Section" of the Washington Post. 8x10 glass negative. View full size.

 

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Quite Shocking

KCguy has it pegged. Those drop cords are grounding the press in multiple areas since static is carried quite well by a moving web of paper. According to the PrintWiki web site:

The excessive friction caused during web gravure printing can also result in high static charge buildup. These charges can exceed 25,000 volts and can cause such printing problems as whiskering, or health hazards such as severe electrocution.

Not Power

My guess is they are some sort of web guides. Or, possibly, strobe lights for viewing the print. Not really sure. The drive motor can be seen in the second picture, on the gear side of the press, with the large belt, in front of the dryer ducts. There's a conduit running down to it to supply power.

High voltage?

I wonder what the network of wires (?) strung through insulators on the ceiling does. There seems to be just one conductor. The thing with the rope handle, just above the guy that is bending over, is fairly clearly a switch. All of the "wires" seem to go to bars that are near the paper path.

I don't think it's the "normal" 120 V or 240 V AC supply to the machines; that seems to run in conventional metal conduit. This is a little easier to see in the second picture.

My guess is that it's some kind of high-voltage distribution, possibly DC, with a return through the grounded frames of the machines. I suspect it helps the paper curl (or not curl), or not stick together - something like that. Anybody know for sure?

Good News / Bad News

I believe the cylinder mounted on the column nearest the camera is a carbon tetrachloride fire extinguisher. Use it, then leave the room. It's poisonous.

[Better to dispose of it safely. -tterrace]

1st & Q

This looks like the same building at Eckington & Q St, NE that Lanman occupied until the late 90's. By the time I started in electronic prepress in '94 the 1st floor had been converted to a garage and the windows had been bricked up, but the columns and beams were still there. We were still outputting film to be used to prepare gravure cylinders for long magazine runs at other printers.
(I had earlier said 1st & Q, but Eckington was the actual cross street.)

Color and more

Lanman survived until the early 2000's first as a color separation house, and then as an electronic prepress provider, until everybody got Macs and basically started doing it themselves.

Behind the guy on the right is the roll of blank paper being fed into the press, and behind the guy in the middle is one of the photoengraved image cylinders (analogous to the plate on an offset press) that give gravure its name.

Lanman's expertise in creating these cylinders is what led them into color separation work. Many of its former employees are still working in the printing business right now.

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