....
Its just one of those days... at least thats what I try to keep telling myself. Since tuesday its just been one of those days. Its rare, if at all, that I actually want to punch something. I guess i should start off with why. Projects class, a 7hr class that was made to simulate an actual ideal working print shop. I missed the first 2 days of that class so I'm not really sure where we're at work wise. Someone decided that a 13hr job should only take 2 days to do... here's where it goes bad. Ideally, yes. A professional pressman should be able to get out 3 single sided jobs done in 90 minutes. wait 4 hours then do the other sides. ideally it should take 7 hours to finish the printing run then the next class would be just binding and finishing. Ie. cutting, trimming, stitching. Those are the IDEAL conidtions. Someone forgot to factor in human and machine error.
We started the job on tuesday, simple enough, run the first side of the double sided signature. its a 24 pg book plus cover. 500 copies. paper alone is a bitch. The film was burned and already set on. It was stll early morning when we looked at the proofs. We failed to notice 3 letters were incorrect. we caught it before we printed so it was fine, no worreis eh?...wrong. we had to redesign the layout to fix it. send it to film and process the film. That alone is 1hr, it was noon when we noticed it. we're done at 3. perhaps if people were pefect it would still be fine but nope.
Well we made teh day a write off, yesterday we ran the cover, the black was easy, the orange is murder. registration alone took 2 hours. not to mention once we finally finished, it was already time to go to our other class.
today was the killer. we had the text fine with our stuff that was done tuesday but... hickies appeared in the ink and we thought we'd just stop and put on plate addition and think it would be ok...wrong. Now add the stress from tuesday and yesterday and add something that was bugging me lastnight, I didn't tighten the plate correctly. the plate tore off since we didn't turn the dampening solution on so it was inked up and the ink is practically industrial strength when the rollers in the press are dry. the only good thing is the layout didn't change much and we found the film we thought we lost.
oh ya, i fucked up my hand because of that plate. I tried pulling it out but my grip slipped and I banged my hand against the table that was a foot away from the press. It hurts a lot right now. I put ice on and its helping. it sucks. I'm glad i missed the ink blade. that thing could've cut if my hand hit it.
One more thing to add. Do Not Think Printing Is Easy. Anything that can go wrong CAN go wrong. thats what happened this week. Everything that could go wrong did. Not to mention the only reason its really stressful is because the job is due next tuesday. we're not even done 1 signature. so to repeat, Printing is not as simple as most people think.
We started the job on tuesday, simple enough, run the first side of the double sided signature. its a 24 pg book plus cover. 500 copies. paper alone is a bitch. The film was burned and already set on. It was stll early morning when we looked at the proofs. We failed to notice 3 letters were incorrect. we caught it before we printed so it was fine, no worreis eh?...wrong. we had to redesign the layout to fix it. send it to film and process the film. That alone is 1hr, it was noon when we noticed it. we're done at 3. perhaps if people were pefect it would still be fine but nope.
Well we made teh day a write off, yesterday we ran the cover, the black was easy, the orange is murder. registration alone took 2 hours. not to mention once we finally finished, it was already time to go to our other class.
today was the killer. we had the text fine with our stuff that was done tuesday but... hickies appeared in the ink and we thought we'd just stop and put on plate addition and think it would be ok...wrong. Now add the stress from tuesday and yesterday and add something that was bugging me lastnight, I didn't tighten the plate correctly. the plate tore off since we didn't turn the dampening solution on so it was inked up and the ink is practically industrial strength when the rollers in the press are dry. the only good thing is the layout didn't change much and we found the film we thought we lost.
oh ya, i fucked up my hand because of that plate. I tried pulling it out but my grip slipped and I banged my hand against the table that was a foot away from the press. It hurts a lot right now. I put ice on and its helping. it sucks. I'm glad i missed the ink blade. that thing could've cut if my hand hit it.
One more thing to add. Do Not Think Printing Is Easy. Anything that can go wrong CAN go wrong. thats what happened this week. Everything that could go wrong did. Not to mention the only reason its really stressful is because the job is due next tuesday. we're not even done 1 signature. so to repeat, Printing is not as simple as most people think.