![Goss_quadruple_straightline_printing_press,_1905_drawing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Goss_quadruple_straightline_printing_press%2C_1905_drawing.png)
A rotary printing press is a
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
in which the images to be printed are curved around a cylinder. Printing can be done on various substrates, including paper, cardboard, and plastic. Substrates can be sheet feed or unwound on a continuous roll through the press to be printed and further modified if required (e.g. die cut, overprint varnished, embossed). Printing presses that use continuous rolls are sometimes referred to as "web presses".
Developmental history
William Nicholson filed a 1790 patent for a rotary press. The rotary press itself is an evolution of the cylinder press, also patented by William Nicholson, invented by Beaucher of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
in the 1780s and by
Friedrich Koenig
Friedrich Gottlob Koenig (17 April 1774 – 17 January 1833) was a German inventor best known for his high-speed steam-powered printing press, which he built together with watchmaker Andreas Friedrich Bauer. This new style of printing pre ...
in the early 19th century. Rotary drum printing has been claimed to be invented by
Richard March Hoe in 1843, and perhaps slightly earlier by
Josiah Warren
Josiah Warren (; 1798–1874) was an American utopian socialist, American individualist anarchist, individualist philosopher, polymath, social reformer, inventor, musician, printer and author. He is regarded by anarchist historians like James ...
. A
1844 patentreplaced the reciprocating platforms used in earlier designs with a fixed platform served by rotating drums, and through a series of advances a complete rotary printing press was perfected in 1846,
an
patentedin 1847. It appeared in Edinburgh in 1851 and then traveled to London where it was used by the Times newspaper in 1853, where it then traveled to France in 1866 and Germany in 1873. By the time it reached Spain in 1885 it had become common use.
[Lyons, M. (2013). Books: a living history. London: Thames & Hudson.] Some sources describe the Parisian
Hippolyte Auguste Marinoni as the inventor of the Rotary printing press, but this was the subject of a patent dispute that was decided in Hoe's favor.
A.S. Abell of the ''
Baltimore Sun'' was the first American user of the rotary press.
Types of rotary printing presses
Today, there are three main types of rotary presses;
offset (including web offset),
rotogravure
Rotogravure (or gravure for short) is a type of intaglio printing process, which involves engraving the image onto an image carrier. In gravure printing, the image is engraved onto a cylinder because, like offset printing and flexography, it ...
, and flexo (short for
flexography). Although the three types use
cylinders to print, they vary in their method.
In
Offset lithography, the image is chemically applied to a plate, generally through exposure of photosensitive layers on the plate material.
Lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
is based on the fact that
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...
and
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
do not mix, which enables the
planographic
Planographic printing means printing from a flat surface, as opposed to a raised surface (as with relief printing) or incised surface (as with intaglio printing). Lithography and offset lithography are planographic processes that rely on the p ...
process to work. In the context of a printing plate, a wettable surface (the non-image area) may also be termed
hydrophilic
A hydrophile is a molecule or other molecular entity that is attracted to water molecules and tends to be dissolved by water.Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). ''A Greek-English Lexicon'' Oxford: Clarendon Press.
In contrast, hydrophobes are ...
and a non-wettable surface (the image area)
hydrophobic
In chemistry, hydrophobicity is the physical property of a molecule that is seemingly repelled from a mass of water (known as a hydrophobe). In contrast, hydrophiles are attracted to water.
Hydrophobic molecules tend to be nonpolar and, t ...
.
Gravure is a process in which small cells or holes are etched into a copper cylinder, which are able to be filled with ink. All the colours are etched in different angles, thus while printing every colour is placed in proper position to give the appropriate image.
Flexography is a relief system in which a raised image is created on a typically polymer-based plate.
In
stamp collecting
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is an area of philately, which is the study (or combined study and collection) of stamps. It has been one of the world's most popular hobbies since the late nineteent ...
, rotary-press-printed stamps are sometimes a different size than stamps printed with a
flat plate
Flat or flats may refer to:
Architecture
* Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries
Arts and entertainment
* Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch
* Flat (soldier), a ...
. This happens because the stamp images are farther apart on a rotary press, which makes the individual stamps larger (typically ).
See also
*
Wetting
Wetting is the ability of a liquid to maintain contact with a solid surface, resulting from intermolecular interactions when the two are brought together. This happens in presence of a gaseous phase or another liquid phase not miscible with ...
References
{{Reflist
Printing