,.
Chapter 47 Printing Factory
The most important equipment in the printing office is the high-speed mimeograph machine. As for several EPSN 24-pin printers, they were also very important in the early days - a lot of wax paper printing used to be done with these printers. Later, after the first batch of female typists were trained, the Chinese typewriters they brought finally came into use. Function, Zhou Dongtian basically relied on a Chinese typewriter to print wax paper.
Now, the Chinese typewriters brought from the old time and space have been cleaned and sealed together with several other dot matrix, inkjet and laser printers in better condition as STC-original standard equipment templates. They have been replaced by a few silly big black ones. A thick local Chinese typewriter. Several female typists were working hard in front of the bright windows, and the sound of typing heads hitting type plates echoed in the room.
In the next room, around a large table, some people were carving steel plates with stylus pens, and some were proofreading the proofs that had just been printed. Everyone was very busy - the printing factory was very busy in the Chuanchuan Group, not only It is responsible for the printing of thousands of copies of Lingao Times and two issues every week, as well as the printing tasks of a large number of textbooks, technical brochures, various manuals and countless documents. The task is very onerous. In addition to mimeograph machines, several hand-operated mimeograph machines were also imitated for small-scale printing. Several workers are shaking the machine.
The engraving workshop occupies the largest area here. Zhou Dongtian went in and took a look. When these workshops were originally built, great care was taken in lighting. The traversing group cannot provide enough artificial light sources for workers, so they have to try to make the most of daylight. A lot of thought was put into the lighting design. Not only are the windows in the workshop large, most of the workshops also have skylights. Use blinds and curtains to moderate the light and make it as soft as possible.
Several old engravers were sitting in front of the window, wearing reading glasses and concentrating on engraving printing plates. Engraving is mainly used to print various bills, blank documents, certificates and the like.
Lingao's currency, grain circulation coupons and other securities, are also printed here. Therefore, the engraving and printing workshop is particularly important. When working, a dedicated person is responsible for monitoring. Before leaving get off work, all engravings, paper and ink must be counted and returned to a special warehouse.
The management system here is very strict. Not only are the production, modification and disposal of engravings recorded, but there is also a registration system for each use of the seal. Clear on every printed page.
Zhou Dongtian went to the mimeograph machine workshop to find Tan Ming - this man is one of the few people in time travel who has ever operated a printing press, and he can also separate colors - but he is not used locally.
The high-speed mimeograph machine is housed in a separate workshop and locked when not in use. Zhou Dongtian originally brought a large amount of spare parts and ink for it, and estimated that it could last about seven or eight years if used more sparingly. In order to serve this treasure, every time the seal is opened, the elders personally operate it, with only a few indigenous apprentices helping.
Tan Ming is washing his hands. He has just finished processing the latest order. It is a Ming Dynasty Mandarin dictionary compiled by the Great Library. The executive committee placed a list of one hundred copies.
Zhou Dongtian has too many part-time jobs, so now Tan Ming is mainly responsible for the technical work of the printing office. Zhou Dongtian talked with him about setting up a printing factory.
"I have never seen a movable type factory like the one you are talking about." Tan Ming shook his head, "I have operated an offset press and done laser typesetting. But I really don't understand the work of using lead movable type."
"It's not necessary for you to do it yourself." Zhou Dongtian said, "But my main focus in the future will be on the movable type printing factory. You can just take care of the printing office. I wrote a letter to the Organization Office, suggesting that the appointment You will be the director of Bairen Printing Factory. It will probably take a few days for you to be officially appointed."
"Of course thank you," Tan Ming said incoherently.
"You're welcome. You are here to do the work, but I am just a part-time employee." Zhou Dongtian waved his hand, "It's almost the same as not being the director of the factory. The key is that you have a name so that you can do things easily."
Zhou Dongtian explained various matters to him one by one in the office. Tan Ming seemed a little unsure. He suddenly had to be responsible for everything, which made him feel a little scared.
Zhou Dongtian finished his work and hurried to the Ministry of Industry to discuss equipment issues.
Movable type printing sounds very modern, but it is almost invisible in the modern printing industry. Even small printing plants no longer use it. Zhou Dongtian has been in contact with movable type printing plants in the past and has some knowledge of this system.
Movable type printing is of course much more efficient than block printing. However, in a traditional society with little industrial foundation, its cost is much higher than that of engraving printing. The technical difficulty is also much greater. This is also the reason why movable type printing has not been popularized in China. There have been only a few large-scale printings of books with movable type in Chinese history, and these were all officially organized. Folk movable type printing has always been limited to small-scale, simple and low-level printing applications. Rarely used to print books.
Of course Zhou Dongtian knew this reason. First of all, casting movable type was a technical job, and printing a book required a large amount of movable type, which had to be manufactured in advance. The materials used for movable type are very particular. Bi Sheng made pottery movable type, which is the least difficult and least expensive to make. Read the full text. Therefore, pottery movable type was still useful in the 19th century. Documents in various places were printed with pottery movable type. Because the adhesion of the printing ink was not good, the printed documents were blurred.
The official documents printed in the Qing Dynasty used copper movable type, and the printing effect was good. But copper movable type was expensive—only the royal family could afford it. The value of copper itself made the emperor unable to resist the idea of making copper movable type. The copper movable type stored in Wuying Palace in the Qing Dynasty was transformed into royal furnishings by the time of Qianlong.
Printmakers also experimented with other materials for movable type, including wood type and tin type. The effect is not good. The requirements for movable type are very high. It must be wear-resistant, not too hard, and able to adhere to ink well. It must be cheap and can be used in large quantities. Only lead meets this requirement. However, the effect of simple lead type is still not ideal, and antimony must be added.
Another problem with movable type printing is ink, which has never been solved in traditional Chinese printing industry - traditional woodblock printing uses water-based ink - water-soluble ink with smoked ink as pigment. Water-soluble ink works well on wooden engravings, but can easily turn into ink beads on metal type. Moreover, transfer printing cannot be completed through simple imprinting like woodblock printing. Rubbing is a very slow process. In order to ensure effective printing, highly absorbent paper must be used. As a result, there will be ink marks on the back of the paper, making it impossible to print on both sides, which virtually increases the cost of printing.
These factors combined have resulted in movable type printing never being the mainstream of the printing industry in China.
New technologies and new concepts cannot become productive forces until appropriate technical means are found. After Zhou Dongtian learned a little bit about the development history of printing out of interest, he had this emotion - Chinese people have proposed countless new technologies and concepts that are ahead of the times in history, but many of them have remained in the primitive stage: In the mid-19th century, the pottery movable type workshops that printed newspapers in various places were no different from those in Bi Sheng's time.
Zhou Dongtian knew that in order to use metal movable type, he had to first solve the problem of large-scale self-produced printing ink - he remembered that the key was to use oil-based ink, that is, to use oil to mix the printing ink.
According to the technical information, boiled linseed oil is the best. It has excellent adhesion and dries easily. So it is still used to prepare oil paints. However, Zhou Dongtian went to the Planning Institute once and looked up all the material catalogues. There is no such thing as linseed oil in the inventory and the materials that can be produced and purchased. As for other vegetable oils, including rapeseed oil, castor oil, coconut oil, and peanut oil, they are not suitable.
"I want linseed oil." He went to Fa Shilu of the Agricultural Committee. As the chief agronomist, he should have some ideas. "I know there isn't any in Lingao, but you can definitely think of some substitute oil that can be produced locally."
"Cannabis oil." It only took Fa Shilu thirty seconds to give him the answer, "There is cannabis in Lingao - to be honest, there are not many places without cannabis. But we have not grown it - the Li people should have grown it. , the last trading team in Li District brought back hemp rope and coarse cloth."
So Zhou Dongtian went to the Planning Institute again. But there is no such thing in the inventory of the Planning Institute - cannabis oil has a slight hallucinogenic effect after consumption and cannot be eaten. Local cannabis has not been grown on a large scale, so the Planning Institute does not care about collecting it at all.
Under his relentless pursuit, Wu De couldn't stand it anymore and finally agreed to put the collection of hemp seeds on his urgent agenda.
"I will ask the remote exploration team and the trading department to collect it as soon as possible." Wu De said, "But I don't know if the cannabis will be knotted - you have to have a schedule, you can't just ask for it."
"Then the executive committee should not suddenly issue instructions to expand exports."
"Okay, okay, it's our fault." Wu De said helplessly, "The key point is that it's too weird for you to get this thing. I still have hemp fiber in stock. No one has ever thought about the seeds."
After solving the ink problem, Zhou Dongtian went to the machinery factory and directly found Zhan Wuya. He was asked to summon all the people who participated in the last production of Chinese typewriters - these people had made the type on the typepad last time, so they were considered experienced.
Lead type needs to be manufactured in large quantities, and the simplest and cheapest mass manufacturing method is of course casting. The specific method is to use hard metal, such as steel, and have the engraver carve out a reverse convex character - a male mold, and then use the male mold to punch out a female mold on the soft brass. Then the lead water is poured into the negative mold to cast the characters.
This is just a simple principle. In fact, there is a series of detailed craftsmanship: the type must be of the same size, and the type base parts must be able to match each other completely so that they can be arranged neatly on the typesetting board. This requires special process equipment to ensure it, and specialized word repair workers to perform the polishing process. Due to the large amount of lead type used, casting lead type must be a continuous large-scale work. The type mold must have a special process to quickly demold. The complete set of type casting technology began in the 15th century, and was gradually improved and perfected. By the 18th century, it had reached reached a very high level.
Zhou Dongtian planned to build on the existing industrial standards of Chuan Chuan Group and manufacture equipment according to the printing factory standards of the 18th century.
Several technicians gathered around the technical materials that Zhou Dongtian copied from the big library, and made critical comments. Obviously, to mass-produce lead type, it is not enough to carve a steel mold for each character. This thing wears out quickly, and the steel mold must be constantly replenished. This puts everyone in a bit of a dilemma: carving steel typefaces is a very boring task, quite boring.
"I remember that the number of commonly used characters is eight hundred. If you want to print, you still need to prepare three thousand characters." Jiang Ye calculated, "Each character requires an average of four or five steel molds. Just make steel molds. It will take tens of thousands. This will last for years and months."
"More than that." Sun Li shook his head, "The printed book must use both simplified and traditional Chinese characters. Adding the two together, the number of characters used must be at least five or six thousand. Moreover, there are many rare characters in ancient books, and these rare characters must also be created. Two steel molds are ready."
"The engravers can recruit engraving masters, who are engravers themselves," Zhou Dongtian said.
"But this efficiency is very low." Sun Li looked at it for a long time and said, "I don't know how many lettering molds an engraver can carve out in a day, but the efficiency will not be too high, and the stamping of the concave mold must be poured manually. ——You also have to add the work of demoulding and filing. If it is all done by hand, it may not be reliable to be able to form printing capabilities in three or four months." He asked: "How does a modern movable type printing factory operate? have to"
"There is a special all-in-one casting and typesetting machine. Type casting, typesetting, and plate splitting are all done automatically and can be operated by one person. Of course, electricity or steam must be used." Zhou Dongtian said and took out several drawings, "But this machine It’s quite complex, almost at the level of the early 20th century.”
What he took out was the Lenno type casting machine invented by the Americans. This machine was used from 1890 to 1940. Although it was mainly used to print newspapers and magazines, it was also widely used to print books in the United States.
A few of them studied together for a long time.
"There is no problem with imitating the machine, but the structural strength and tolerance of the material are difficult to control. This machine is quite precise." Xiao Gui said, "It can be made, but the quality cannot be guaranteed."
"What I mean is to make it simple first and then make it difficult. It is difficult to manufacture the integrated casting and rowing machine, so we should build it later. Sacrifice efficiency first and use simple processes." Sun Li said, "Industrial upgrading is not a matter of one or two days."
"I have an idea," said Liang Xin, who had been silent. "Let's think about it the other way around - we have precise stamping technology that people in this era don't have. We might as well use stamping to make typefaces."
His idea was to use high-strength steel to make a concave mold, and then use the concave mold as a stamping head to directly punch a lead plate of a certain thickness, and punch the lead characters directly from the lead plate.
"In this way, we can save the casting process. One stamping mold can punch hundreds of words at a time. The efficiency is much higher." Liang Xin said, "The stamped workpieces also require much less post-processing work. We don't need so much. Repair file."
"Then you have to make thousands of stamping dies." Jiang Ye frowned, "Besides, you used high-strength steel to make the concave mold. What material did you use to make the punch? Do you want the engraving workers to directly carve the high-strength steel?"
"I think it's possible. This is what they eat. Even diamonds, jade and glass can be carved. Why can't steel be carved?" Liang Xin said, "It just seems a little too late in terms of speed. Or just use a machining center to make lettering molds."
"Your idea is good, but it doesn't work." Zhou Dongtian shook his head, "The characters you write out like this are just one character. Without a character base, it is impossible to arrange them neatly on the typesetting board. And there are no characters with side radicals on the base. what to do"
Liang Xin scratched his head in disappointment. He didn't expect this question.
"If speed is required, the first batch of embossed character molds can be made directly using a machining center. A few days of work is enough." Sun Li said, "It only takes one stage, and then the engravers can gradually become familiar with it." .”
"It's a pity that we are too far away from Europe." Zhou Dongtian said. "The Dutch already have professional letter foundries that can produce a variety of standardized letters and symbols for printing plants to use."
"The Dutch are making letters. Can we ask them to make Chinese characters?" Jiang Ye touched his chin. "Why don't we talk to the executive committee and recruit a group of Dutch lettersmiths - we just don't have enough time."
"It should be possible, he just thinks of it as doing graphics." Zhou Dongtian said with regret, "But it's a long way away. Even if we send people to wait for them to arrive in Lingao now, it will be at least two years later."
Sun Li said: "Aren't the Dutch in Batavia? Since the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company is there, they have to print something. There will definitely be a printing workshop. According to you, the casting of characters must be carried out all the time. There must be a few typewriters as well. Just kidnap them and bring them back with their equipment. Lock them up and help us print."
"I always feel that this method is too backward." Jiang Ye looked at it for a long time. "There should be a simple method - we must know that we are standing on the shoulders of our predecessors. With so many inventions and creations, we can always choose the right one." Come. Let’s think about the craftsmanship again.”
"The sooner this happens, the better." Zhou Dongtian said. If you can recruit skilled typewriters, it will be much better than a half-hearted person like yourself who trains workers yourself. After all, he has only seen how to type and print, so he feels a little unsure if he really wants to guide the whole process.
Zhou Dongtian continued his departmental travels and official document applications. He approached the Ministry of Colonization and Trade and submitted documents regarding a trip to Batavia to recruit Dutch printers. The document emphasizes that whether it is forced or voluntary, as long as we can get people here, it will be fine. It’s best to get the equipment together.
Skade is organizing a trade expedition to Southeast Asia. Zhou Dongtian's request was incidental, and he agreed immediately. He said that as long as there are local people, he will do everything possible to get them. ,.
