Old school and/or New press ?

[Bigbadlee]

Hi,

I thought I would try a post to see if I can clear up a discussion/aurgument thats been ongoing on my shopfloor. I have been a Printer/Supervisor for 20 years and have ran everything from a platen (remember them!) to a brand new SM74. In this time I have used various inking and dampening systems most of which were manually adjusted. So I believe that the experience I've built up benefits me, even though most of the manual skills on the press are not really needed.

However another Supervisor argues that you could train anybody up (within reason) on a SM74 and after a while (not 20 years!) they could do exactly the same job as someone with experience. The arguement being 'Does 20 odd years of experience on manual presses benefit anyone who runs a press with ink presetting, automatic sheet size/resize, auto pressure setting' etc.

I would really like to hear what you guys think.

Thanks, Lee

[Albert Noel]

i think i agree with the other guy. theres alot to learn when everything is manual, but within reason, a person with less experiance should be able to produce the same results with a fully automted press.
thats the whole point of all the automation.. to take all the human error out.
however, if one, or some or all of those systems fail, chances are they wont be producing quality jobs. even with fully automated you still need to take the time to learn the ins and the outs of the trade.

for example, i started as a feeder/general help. once i got to know the characteristics of paper and ink and feeding in general, i was promoted to running a duplicator (heidi qm-46/2, dupe.... press.... whatever you want to call it). once i got to know how to apply ink to that same paper, the skill of ink/water balancing and the way fountain solution and proper pressures and blanket packing and such worked, i was given the opertunity to advance to operating a 5 colour roland. at this point, i have been with the company since 2001, and operating this press for 5 or so years and i regularly produce results equal to and sometimes better than operators on the same press with 15 and 20 years experiance.

[nhprinter]

Hi Guys,

I think what some people forget is something that automation can't replace and that's an "eye" for color and quality that's built up with experience. These new guys can slap a densitometer on the color bars all they want, but without being able to look at the job as a whole, how it relates to the proof etc... It mean nothing to me.

I know the new presses are designed to take the human element out of running a press, but if I was hiring for the newest press make I'd still look for someone with a lot of experience.

I can't tell you how many times I've walked over to approve a sheet and had to have the pressman correct color and fit before I even put a glass or densitometer on the sheet. I know that comes from running presses for over 30 years.

On the other hand.....because of the lack of experienced pressman out there....I think we need the automation, but it's sad to see the "old school" way of doing things go away. People look at me like I have two heads when I tell them I use to run all the 4 color work in the shop on a Heidelberg KORD.

Dave

[Kevin@Kodak]

My opinion is that the less you know about how your presses (or any equipment) work, the more reliant you are on your vendor and their technology. When everything's running well, that experience doesn't have as much value. However, when things go wrong (and they do), having that experience will be the difference between keeping your shop running and waiting for your vendor to show up, diagnose the issue, and hopefully understand/fix it for you.

Many press vendors provide great service - but they don't live on your shop floor. Worse, if your issue is intermittant, it may take them months to track it down - while having you on site full time would certainly help cut that down.

I also agree with the eye for color - as good as automated systems these days are, they're cold and impersonal. Some printing calls for that... but show me an award-winning printer that doesn't have a color guru watching over it and I'd be surprised.

Just my $0.02. Kevin.

[Albert Noel]

My opinion is that the less you know about how your presses (or any equipment) work, the more reliant you are on your vendor and their technology. When everything's running well, that experience doesn't have as much value. However, when things go wrong (and they do), having that experience will be the difference between keeping your shop running and waiting for your vendor to show up, diagnose the issue, and hopefully understand/fix it for you.

Many press vendors provide great service - but they don't live on your shop floor. Worse, if your issue is intermittant, it may take them months to track it down - while having you on site full time would certainly help cut that down.

I also agree with the eye for color - as good as automated systems these days are, they're cold and impersonal. Some printing calls for that... but show me an award-winning printer that doesn't have a color guru watching over it and I'd be surprised.

Just my $0.02. Kevin.

i should go back to my reply and say that it really depends on the person.

we've got a premier print "benny" award from a piece i printed. I've got an eye for colour. i guess it depends on how fast you learn, in my case, i learn very fast and printing became my passion and seeing and reading the overall picture fell into place. i still don't have the years of experience that many of you guys have though, but my press doesn't have ink-key presetting or closed loop colour... part old-school, part new-school...

[Sfdp2300]

Just because the presses have all this automation doesnt make the short term operator a pressman.. it takes time to be able to identify problems and resolve issues caused by variables such as bad water, bad paper ink problems. I work with a bunch of operators and very few accual pressmen. You can never replace 20 years exprience. Trouble shooting skills are the skills that save the day or the job.

Im sure you all have worked with atleast one pressman who has said "I have forgotten more about printing the you will ever know".....

So next time you see the new guy who thinks he knows his shit grab a knife full of magenta and ask him if he think the ink smells spoiled .... you probably know the rest... or ask him to go get you the left handed screw driver...

[otherthoughts]

Hi,

I thought I would try a post to see if I can clear up a discussion/aurgument thats been ongoing on my shopfloor. I have been a Printer/Supervisor for 20 years and have ran everything from a platen (remember them!) to a brand new SM74. In this time I have used various inking and dampening systems most of which were manually adjusted. So I believe that the experience I've built up benefits me, even though most of the manual skills on the press are not really needed.

However another Supervisor argues that you could train anybody up (within reason) on a SM74 and after a while (not 20 years!) they could do exactly the same job as someone with experience. The arguement being 'Does 20 odd years of experience on manual presses benefit anyone who runs a press with ink presetting, automatic sheet size/resize, auto pressure setting' etc.

I would really like to hear what you guys think.

Thanks, Lee

Has the other Supervisor who "argues that you could train anybody up" been a pressman himself for 20 years? I would guess that the answer is no.

I suspect that we can all agree that the learning curve is steepest in the beginning. If the rookie is trained by another rookie, he will in essence have a GED in press-work. I suspect that this is not what "the other Supervisor" had in mind though. If "the other Supervisor" envisioned training the rookie with his best and most experienced pressmen, then I suspect that this fact in of itself denotes the need for experienced pressmen. What he is saying is that if you distill your 20 yrs. of experience down and hand it to the rookie, the rookie does pretty well on most days. Most pressman are secretive, what if the rookie had to learn it all on his own?

I also suspect we can all agree that with little effort most pressmen of any caliber can achieve a 85% quality level product. From the 85% quality level to 100% quality level product, it is increasingly more difficult to achieve and requires increasingly more skill and control. This is also true for anything from the range of sports to astrophysics.

In defense of the other Supervisor, press technology has grown immensely and made consistency, automation and reliability much better. I would liken this to the better equipment athletes have today. Take two equally talented athletes, give one the Old equipment and the other the New equipment. The athlete using the New equipment typically has some advantage over the one using the Old.

But the growth in press technology is still not artificial intelligence. The rookie using current technology typically becomes more and more reliant on the buttons he pushes at the cost of the understanding and skill to do what the buttons do for him on his own. Ultimately trading his absolute skill and understanding in for the efficiency. All in all it is mostly a good trade. Like trading a rotary dial pulse telephone for a push button tone telephone.

I suspect that the elders beat the whippersnappers from time to time when problems foreign to the next generation occur. That is what the elders are there for. In fact I think that this is precisely why this forum is here as well.

And lastly, just for fun I ask this question,

"Why does the Cyan ink typically require a 60% dot to create a mid-tone gray while the Magenta and Yellow inks only need roughly 50%".

For those of you who know why this is, I simply say to you that I always held onto and valued things that I acquired on my own, not so much with things that I didn't work for.

[Alois Senefelder]

Hi everyone, the difference is to maintain the "Neutral Balance" -- the Dot Sizes of Yellow,Magenta and cyan required to produce neutral greys of different strengths are not the same, larger dot sizes of Cyan are required to maintain "Neutral Grey Balance"

When equal dot sizes are used for each tonal step this results in a "Muddy Brown" colour.


Regards, Alois

[Alois Senefelder]

Maybe I shouldn't have given the answer !!!!!!!!


Alois

[otherthoughts]

Hi everyone, the difference is to maintain the "Neutral Balance" -- the Dot Sizes of Yellow,Magenta and cyan required to produce neutral greys of different strengths are not the same, larger dot sizes of Cyan are required to maintain "Neutral Grey Balance"

When equal dot sizes are used for each tonal step this results in a "Muddy Brown" colour.


Regards, Alois

I agree with everything you said Alois.

Perhaps what I really meant to ask is why equal amounts of the subtractive primary colors CMY, result in a "Muddy Brown" color instead of a neutral gray?

Regards
otherthoughts