Plant Tour
Sheeting
The next stop on the tour is the Sheeting Department. No job can begin until the paper has been cut to the appropriate size. Unlike most book manufacturing plants, Friesens orders all of our paper in rolls, and then converts it to sheets. Most of our presses are sheet-fed, so all roll stock has to be converted into sheets before printing can begin.
Activities in the Sheeting Department consist of unloading rolls of paper when they arrive, storing the paper until it has reached the proper temperature and humidity, and finally sheeting and trimming the paper as required by the press.
The sheeter itself is a machine that unravels rolls of paper and cuts them into different lengths and widths. Rolls of paper weighing up to 4,000 pounds are placed inside the loading rack of the sheeter by means of an electric hoist. Up to four rolls can be run at one time.
The paper is fed into a series of cylinders that act as decurlers. The paper then passes through a chamber where a bed knife and rotating knife are located. As paper passes through this area, it is precisely cut into sheets.
The sheeter can run at a speed of 600 feet per minute. At this rate, the sheeter is capable of sheeting up to 10 tons of paper per hour. The cutting speed varies according to paper properties such as thickness, moisture content, etc.
On average, we sheet more than 1,000 tons of paper per month. As the sheets of paper pass over the end of the sheeter, they are placed on a skid that lowers itself as the pile increases. A small device under the sheeter will place a tag into the paper. This allows us to automatically count and separate sheets of paper for different presses. When the skid is filled, it is moved to the paper handling system where the paper will be trimmed to its final size.
The Paper Handling System automates many of the manual tasks of trimming paper to its final size. Paper is placed to the left of the machine, and from there will be automatically loaded for the operator. Sheet sizes are programmed into the computer by the operator.
Once set, a holding clamp will secure the stack of paper and a very sharp knife will make an exact cut. All four sides of the paper must be trimmed to create a square, clean stack of paper that printers call a ream.
Once the paper has been trimmed, it is placed on a second attached table to the right of the machine called the unloader. When activated, the table will move down toward a skid on the floor, slide the paper off of the table and onto the skid. When the skid is full, it will be moved to the pressroom.
As you walk past the sheeter, you will see on your left and right columns of paper from floor to ceiling. In order to ensure that we have enough paper on hand to provide quick turnaround to our customers, we keep a wide variety of paper in inventory at all times.
We of course will order paper for our publishers as well. If you would like to see a listing of the papers we commonly supply, please click on Paper Stock.
