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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1987-09-30, Page 30PAGE 11. The press was the start of it all The gamble to buy offset press paid off for SSP and the Shriers The 10 -unit Daily King press with the two folders which sits in the pressroom at Signal Star Publishing Limited in Goderich, has a voracious appetite for work - and for newsprint and ink. • Most of the newsprint used at SSP conies from Kapuskasing and Iroquois Falls in Northern Ontario. In one week, the prsssroom calls for 25-30 tonnes of newsprint from the adjacent warehouse where from 60-70 tonnes is always in stock. At $685 a tonne, the cost of newsprint per week runs at between $17,125 and $20,550. Put in terms that readers may under- stand better, it takes from one to one and a - half tonnes of newsprint to print The - - Goderich Signal -Star each week. Cost for newsprint alone for The Goderich Signal - Star for one issue runs as high as $1028. At an average of $850 per issue for 52 issues, newsprint to publish The Goderich Signal -Star costs $44,200 per annum. With a Subscription costing $23, it takes 1920 subscriptions just to -pay for the newsprint. Then we need to talk about ink. The pressroom calls for approximately 2,000 kilos of black ink per month. At $2.35 per kilo, the cost of black ink for SSP in one month is $4,700. That's another 200 subscriptions. Coloured ink is more expensive at $5 and $12 per kilo. The pressroom uses 500 kilos of coloured ink per month. By the way, all ink used by SSP is 90 percent smudge - proof and because of that, SSP ink runs a little higher in price than some others. The pressroom has two full shifts of pressmen, apprentice pressmen and assistants. Pressroom supervisor is George Vanderburgh.-Head- pressmen are Paul Steep and Jim Shropshall. The SSP press crew print all Signal -Star Publishing Limited papers as well as The Listowel Independent, The Blyth Citizen, The press shows how offset process works The Zurich Advance and The Parkhill Gazette. Also published in the Goderich pressroom are the London Auto Trader, the Hamilton Auto trader, the St. Catharines Auto Trader, the Detroit Auto Trader, the Boat Trader, the Truck Trader and the Detroit Truck Trader. Each and every week. 12,000 copies of OnSat roll off the Goderich press, on its way to the owners of satellite dishes around North America who subscribe to the weekly programming schedule. Of course, The Anglican Church of Canada remains the single largest customer of the pressroom at Goderich. Published at Goderich are The Canadian Churchman, the national newspaper for the Anglican Church circulating 273,000 copies per month for 10 months of the year; and 19 Diocesan newspapers in- cluding The Algoma Anglican from Nor- thern. Ontario; The Athabasca -Edmonton Anglican Messenger from Alberta; The Mustard Seed from Brandon, Manitoba; the British Columbia Diocesan Post; The Caledonia Times from British Columbia; The Sower out of Calgary, Alberta; The Huron Church News from Southwestern Ontario; Kootenay -The Highway from British Coluinbia; The Montreal Chur- chman from Quebec; The New Westminster Topic from British Columbia; The Newfoundland Churchman; The Niagara Anglican from Ontario; The Diocesan Times from Nova Scotia; The Ontario Churchman from Kingston; Crosstalk from Ottawa, Ontario; The Quebec Diocesan Gazette; Rupert's Land News from Winnipeg, Manitoba; The Saskatchewan Anglican out of aegina; and The Toronto Anglican. Several other publications are printed on an occasional basis. The Shriers proudly display a photograph of the company employees in front of the Signal -Star office on Bayfield Road. The simplified sketch photo was a gift to the Shriers from the employees. This simplified -drawing of an eight -unit King Web Offset Press with two -to -one. King Jaw 8 folder and balloon former, will help you understand how' your newspaper is printed each week. The press is built with stacked units to conserve floor space. In the drawing, the circles represent the cylinders of the press (note how they are situated above and below each other). The newsprint comes off great rolls of paper (not shown on this diagram) located to the left of the units. If you follow the path of the paper (lines) you will see there are eight webs (lines of paper) being fed to the folder. The plates (described earlier) are fasten- ed around the outer cylinder on each side of each unit. There are two plate -carrying cylinders in each unit, each plate having two pages on it. The blankets are fastened onto the inner two cylinders in each unit. The plate is the positive. The image from the plate is transferred in ink to the blanket. The blanket is the negative (backwards). The paper travels between the blankets and the image in ink is pressed onto the paper in the positive. Hence the term offset. These are known as perfecting units which allow both sides of the newsprint to be printed simultaneously. By re-routing the newsprint, the paper can be drawn through more than one unit in one pass, providing the ability to print col- our( s) plus black. When colour is used, it reduces the page capacity of the press because an extra unit is required for each colour added to the press. The press depicted here has the capacity to print 32 broadsheet half -folded pages in one pass or 64 tabloid pages flat (no fold) black and white. All SSP broadsheet papers are quarter -folded, which means the capaci- ty is reduced to 24 broadsheet pages in one pass, or 48 tabloid pages half folded in one pass.