Heidelberg: sucking multiple sheets through
We are new to our Heidelberg windmill. We really gave it our first real shot today. Most everything went fine except that after a while we changed over to a different paper and we couldn’t get it to take one sheet at a time through. Sometimes it could take as many as five sheets. It was as if the suction was going through all of those sheets and keeping them together.
We had fanned the paper plenty well.
We tried most of the obvious things - angle of the suckers, paper thickness adjustment, which suckers were active, adjusting the air blast.
General thoughts of things we could try?
If you haven’t already read these manuals you should do so first.
Depending on the weight of the stock will determine which color sucker bar guides you use or the white rubber suckers that go on the metal suckers.
Sometimes it’s a combination of adjusting the “Pile Height Control”, “Feed Table Lift”, and “Feed Blower Adjustment”.
When I run the Crane 210# I use two white suckers and open an extra sucker. The less suckers you have open the more suction you will have on the suckers, so open more suckers to have less suction. If your picking up multiple sheets then this is another adjustment to think about.
Download these two manuals. When I got my Windmill the advise was to read the manual 3 times before I started printing.
http://www.boxcarpress.com/community/manuals/heidelberg-hints.pdf
http://www.boxcarpress.com/community/manuals/heidelberg-10x15-manual.pdf
Casey McGarr
Inky Lips Letterpress
McKinney, TX
Hi Lead Graffiti,
Aside from the many press adjustments which may solve your problem, here is another tip possibly useful to those switching from hand-feeding to an auto platen: most presses seem to handle paper better if the pile is slightly convex, and worse if concave. I usually place a piece of pica reglet running right to left under the stock in the feeder.
The reglet runs the full width of the stock, sticking out each side. A two-pica piece of furniture can be used if more curl is desired, but it will bind at the top of the feed table against the standards if it is run between them.
Sometimes a wedge under the tail of the stock will help feed small or stiff sheets singly. It is also possible to roll stock gently by hand to impart or remove a curl.
Hope this helps, Brian
Lead Graffiti
All above advice is correct. I have had problems with light stock on my H cylinder.ericm’s tip about masking tape was a quick fix and a new addition to the bag of tricks.Also for H platen I always use side tripping springs(MY WINDMILL MANUAL PAGE 69) on left and right of feed table. The suckers may try to get a second sheet but are foiled by the springs. When running small sheets I use extended paper clips that allow more reach.
Mike