Notes on development of the early printing presses.

Prior to the year 1851 paper delivered in rolls was rarely seen. But in that year Theodore Nelson of England developed a printing press that utilized endless rolls of paper instead of sheets that were picked up from reams that had to be manually fed into the press. The rotating cylinder press had been patented six years earlier by American Richard Hoe. It is fair to say that Mr. Nelson's invention was merely an add-on to Mr. Hoe's machine. Further improvement of Mr. Nelson's press was done in the US by William A. Bullock, and his version more or less became the blue-print for all presses built during that period. The first machine of this type was put to work in the press room of The Philadelphia Enquirer in 1865.

The trouble with rolls....

With improvement of the presses, speed picked up and demand for better quality rolls came along. One of the problems was that large rolls were too softly wound. Eventually, it became obvious that existing winding technology was inferior.  

The trouble with winding....

In the 1860's winders as we know them today were not yet invented. Rolls were wound on shafts in slitting and winding stations directly on the paper machine. Such arrangements were positioned where we find the reel on today's paper machines. Power for each winding shaft was supplied by the paper machine main drive. Care had to be taken to see that tension was even in all webs and if a break occurred, splices could not be made in the usual manner. Instead rolls had to be rewound and spliced on some simple shaft to shaft rewinding device. Rolls wound in the described manner were of course center wound. 

The coming of the winder.

Towards the end of the 1860's Carl Theodor Bischof, Director of Papierfabrik Schlögmühl near Gloggnitz, Austria, had ideas of a winding device separate from the paper machine. In 1873 the first winder of Mr. Bischof's design went to work in the Schlögmühl paper mill. The machine was built by J. M. Voith of Heidenheim, Germany. 

The Bischof-winder.

Obviously, the original Bischof-winder wasn't the prefect answer to the problems encountered. While today's winders have two drums, the Bischof-winder had only one, on which the set of rolls being wound balanced. Because of this, the set was easily brought into vibrations. This in turn caused the slitters, which cut directly on the set, to "work" in the set, causing the formation of large amounts of dust. When the rolls reached the printing rooms, the presses got "dusted", which obviously was to the disliking of the printers.
When the No.3 paper machine was started at Drammenselvens Papirfabrikker in Norway in May 1897 a Bischof-winder from Maschinenfabrik C. G. Haubold of Chemnitz, Germany was ready to take care of the winding. Only a couple of months later customers reported severe problems with dust. On August 3rd 1897 the Board of Directors approved the purchase of a new Bischof-winder from H. Füllner of Warmbrunn, Schlesien. The Füllner machine differed form the one from Haubold mainly in design of the slitting section. Haubold had devised tangential slitters which cut the web before it reached the winding stage. With the redesigned and repositioned slitters the dusting problem was done away with although the vibrations remained. Speed was up to 100 m/min (305 ft/min)
A few years later the Bischof-winder became obsolete when the two-drum winder was invented in America. The first ones appeared in 1902. Which company was first to bring out the two-drum winder is lost to history, but companies like Beloit, Pusey & Jones and a couple of others will come to mind. If any of you visitors to this page have information on who invented the two-drum winder, please contact Luigi Bagnato in the US or Øyvind Haugen in Norway.

Two-drum rewinder built by Jagenberg of Germany.

From trucking to winding.

Whether we like it or not paper rolls in various sizes and diameters have come to play an important role in most people's lives. Up until the fall day in 1977 when I climbed out of my truck and got my first job in the paper industry, I hadn't given much thought to the fact that rolls had to be made in some way. Maybe I had some vague idea that some sort of machinery was involved in the process, but the rest was beyond my troubled mind. On my first day at the new job I discovered that there was a machine called the winder, and that was where the rolls were made. I was put to work as assistant to Mr.Sigurd Moen - the winder operator. Somewhat later, I also got to know Mr.Werner Meyer - at that time erecting engineer at Maschinenfabrik Goebel in Germany.

                                 
        Sigurd Moen.                    Werner Meyer.
Through these men's skills, their vast knowledge and abilities to teach, I got an introduction to the mysteries of winding that I consider unique. I also developed an interest in winders that went far beyond my real job. Having always been a history oriented sort of guy, I eventually came to look into the development of winders. One of the first things I discovered was, it wasn't always that easy.

  
Two typical arrangements for making paper rolls directly on the paper machine. The upper one is American, the lower is European.

Neither of us here at The Paper History Channel have ever seen any of the above described winding devices nor have we seen a Bischof-winder. If any of you visitors have seen one, we welcome your comments.
Please contact Luigi Bagnato or Øyvind Haugen

Fully automatic two-drum winder built by Talleres Lemu of Spain for making rolls of foodwrap - 28 cm wide, 50 m long. This machine is coupled to an automatic wrapping and boxing unit.

Winder type U16h built by Machinenfabrik Goebel.