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Steve Jobs

There was a lot to see in Professor Caputo’s shop here at City Tech. Machines of all sizes fill the entire room. When our class visited the shop on Monday, December 2, we learned about Post Press and Finishes. We were showed how a paper-folding machine worked. It was a huge and very loud piece of equipment. The Professor added sheets of paper, more than enough for everyone in class, onto a flat surface with what looked like a sewing needle hanging over it. The paper was pushed into the machine’s conveyor belt and folded in half in seconds. It was then pushed back onto the conveyor belt and sent to the other end of the machine to be folded a second time before coming out. We then had about 60 sheets of perfectly folded paper in about 3 minutes.

We were each then given a few folded papers, now called signatures, and were asked to create a book out of them by collating the signatures. We were guided to a large saddle stapler. We took turns stapling our books; some of us going back to make sure the staples were perfectly centered in the crease. Once everyone was done, we went over to the automatic guillotine to make our books even on all sides.  This machine made a loud noise that could be mistaken for an airplane taking off. It held down about 10 stapled signatures at a time and cut them to perfection. It was an enjoyable experience to see the process of making a simple book.