cases or bundles, counted out the
number of sheets required for each form, piled it on hand trucks,
keeping that required for each form separate, and have delivered it to
the press. If a machine feeder is used, the paper is piled on the
elevator of the feeder, from which it is automatically taken, one
sheet at a time, and delivered on endless tapes to gauges on the feed
board of the press, thus bringing every sheet in the same position
each time. The number of sheets required for the order are printed
from one form on one side and then from another form on the other
side.

From the preceding it can be seen that to get a press ready may be a
matter of hours, while, in the case of ordinary book work, a press
generally prints from 1200 to 2000 impressions and more per hour.

The principal difference between making ready a form on a flat-bed
perfecting press with two cylinders and on a single-cylinder press is
in extra work necessary to obtain correct registering of the plates
and in preventing an offset of the fresh ink on the second cylinder.
Otherwise, a perfecting press is very much like two cylinder presses
joined together. It has two sets of rollers, two ink fountains, two
cylinders, two forms, etc., but only one feed board and one delivery.
The sheet is fed to one cylinder and printed, taken from this
cylinder by the second and printed on the second side, and delivered
on the "fly board" ready to go to the shipping department.

The process of making ready forms containing illustrations is
practically the same as for plain ones, except that a new underlay is
made for each form, and much more care and skill must be used on the
cuts themselves. It frequently happens that one or even two days are
spent making ready a form of half-tone cuts, before the actual
printing, which takes perhaps half a day to do, can be begun.

In most offices, a special "cut overlay" is made for forms with cuts,
or illustrations. The cut is placed on a hand press before the form is
made up, and proofs on four different thicknesses of paper are made.
The heaviest paper is used as a bottom sheet, and the others are
pasted on it. Out of the next to the thickest paper of all, the solid
blacks are cut and pasted accurately on the same places on the bottom
sheet. From the second or next thinner sheet, the medium shades
including the solid blacks are cut and pasted on the bottom sheet,
thus building up the blacks and strong shadows. From the thinn