• Swiss equipment exhibition points the way for improved banks and frames
• Factors involved in choosing a new frame for your shop are discussed
• Increasing hour costs and production stopgaps show need for improvement

Reports issuing from Graphic 57, the graphic arts exhibition held in Switzerland last summer, indicate that the composing room is finally receiving some attention from equipment manufacturers, particularly in the design of banks and frames that will enable the compositor to produce more efficiently.

The style of working surfaces in the composing room has been static for too many years. Certain composing rooms have had frames built to their particular specifications to meet the requirements of jobs or working procedures, but there has been little variety in standard equipment in the past.

Certainly there is a need for up-to-date designs of working surfaces, in the light of increasing hour costs and production bottlenecks. Perhaps the comp should be consulted, too, to determine what he can recommend to simplify a day “at the frame.”

A number of commercial composing rooms in the United States have adopted the flat surface, which has for many years been almost exclusively a newspaper property. The arguments in favor of the flat bank would appear to give it a slight edge in most of the operations of the compositor. Since makeup is the principal task in most composing rooms, the frame should be designed to expedite this work. Newspaper makeup is, of course, mostly in slugs, and when single types are used they are generally in display sizes.

Most Work Done in Small Type

The compositor in the commercial plant will do a great deal more work in smaller type sizes, but invariably the ma- chine product is again the slug. Using a flat makeup surface, the compositor can stand squarely in front of the job and exercise maximum control at all times. It is even possible to make up a very large page or a broadside without the use of a galley, particularly if the page is beyond galley size. Further, small jobs may be locked up at the frame instead of piling up on the stone.

In the plant with Monotype equipment, the flat surface has been criticized, hence the sloped bank common to the majority of shops. Several of the European manufacturers exhibiting at the Swiss show made an attempt to combine both kinds of makeup operations in a single frame, one end of the frame containing the sloped surface and the other end being flat. Still another well-designed unit is convertible, allowing an easy changeover from flat to sloping bank. The surfaces of the new frames are of metal or smooth formica, which can stand a great deal of abuse.

The controversy over flat or sloped banks will probably take many years to resolve, since printers tend to accept only those procedures which work best in their own shops. Of course, the individual compositor is also a tough nut to crack when somebody tells him to change his ways. We favor the flat surface as being adaptable to most working conditions, with the half-and-half the next best. In any modernization program, certainly, all kinds of frames should be considered before a decision is made.

The surface is not the only factor in the selection of a frame. The frames generally available in American composing rooms have two banks of type cases beneath the working surface in addition to a single rack for leads and slugs. Additional racks are suspended at the top of the frame. Very few frames are obtainable with additional storage facilities. However, one manufacturer has recently introduced a small rack for long lengths of strip material. This rack fits under the top of the frame on the side where there are no cases.

The positioning of the type cases often presents a hazard to the compositor working at the frame. When space is at a premium, the room between frames is often insufficient to allow easy access to the types in the cases, even when they are placed upon the opposite side of the frame from the compositor. Frequently, a comp must wait before pulling out a case because the compositor at the frame is completing a tie-up. In any busy shop this occurs a dozen times a day and more for each man.

In a ten-man composing room which has a $12 per hour cost, ten minutes per day of such delays would result in a $100 loss in production time each week. This seemingly obvious result indicates the need for well-planned production procedures and further should suggest the source of the cash for modernizing.

The location of the type case is best staggered so that but half of the frame is blocked off at one time. Better yet, the cases can be located at the sides of the frames, particularly where they are doubled up. Galley racks are being included in all European frames, making it possible for the comp to have his made up pages readily accessible. In a publications plant this should be quite feasible where frequently the same men handle certain periodicals each month.

It is possible that several designs can be included in any one composing room, each frame being adapted to the particular kind of work being produced. On the whole, any storage facilities at the frame should be carefully considered, as interference with the compositor in his normal work must be questioned.

Swinging Seat Added

Another feature of the Swiss frames is the inclusion of a detachable swinging seat at each frame. American printers will undoubtedly raise eyebrows at this one, but again some thought should be given to the operation. If the working surface is flat and the materials for makeup within easy reach, the pages can be made up as rapidly in a sitting position as in a standing one. The last three hours of the day would probably be more productive, too. Anyone who has observed the various contrivances such as rugs, boards, and rubber pads which compositors utilize to save their arches on a concrete floor will agree that a seat has a certain merit.

Operators of progressive composing rooms realize the importance of the ready availability of large quantities of labor saving material at every working space—materials such as leads and slugs, quads and spaces, and strip furniture from two to six picas in width. It is, therefore, not at all uncommon to observe any number of “home-designed” frames which provide such conveniences. Here again the objective is to save steps.

Since the purpose of this article is to discuss the compositor’s working surface, I will not digress to mention the plant layout beyond the individual frame, but here, too, I suggest that exhaustive tests should precede any plans for modernization. If a few compositors at a time are given simple little pedometers to wear, it will be easy to determine just how many miles they travel each day in the normal pursuance of supplies, galleys of type, using the saw, etc.

An interesting feature of the frames being manufactured in Europe is the extension rails for each case, with a locking device which prevents the case from pulling out from the frame. This feature allows the compositor to reach the back of the case easily and quickly with little likelihood of dropping the case.

It would seem that many of the innovations mentioned are the result, not of a search for gimmicks, but of reasonable planning to increase the productivity of the composing room in an area in which there is considerable room for improvement, the ordinary working surface of the compositor. This is an approach which can yield dividends if pursued consistently and with forethought.

This article first appeared in “The Composing Room” column of the December 1957 issue of The Inland Printer.