The 442 pages of the Carrera RS book were printed in three different language versions (English, German, French) by the offset printer Druckpartner in Mühlheim an der Ruhr. Each sheet forms a socalled 16-page signature: carrying 8 pages of the book on its front and another 8 on its backside. These 16-page sheets were stacked on palettes 4 feet high. Apart from the special signature with the paint-to-sample colors of the Carrera RS (pages 257-274, more on that later) all pages of the book – in total 29 signatures – were printed here. The 29 palettes, each with more than 4000 sheets were trucked Oktober 12th to the industrial book binder in Celle (close to Hannover).
Since the paper supplier had delivered 8% less than ordered, production had to be halted for 10 days until new paper arrived from Göteborg, Sweden. Since my special format could not be produced at short notice, we had to make do with a more standardized size of 72 x 102 cm. As a consequence, this slightly smaller format necessitated a switch from 16- to 12-page signatures. To reduce the time lost in production, I acted as a courier to get the first samples from the printer to the book binder.
This 8-color sheet off-set printing machine relies on eight printing drums with one reversing station in the middle. With this set-up it is possible to print front and back sides of the sheets in one pass.
The display shows the current speed of printing. Here, the machine is running at 3000 sheets/hour. The color mix and the exact fit are controlled at the control and measuring desk. As soon as everything is set-up, the machine speeds up to 14,000 sheets/hour. After the approx. 4,000 sheets are printed, all eight aluminum, photo-etched printing plates have to be exchanged for the print data of the next 16 pages of the book...
The last palettes of paper (Artic Volume 150 g/qm with a volume weight of 1,08) were delivered in the slightly smaller more standardized format of 720 x 1020 mm. The paper supplier is located in Göteborg, Sweden. These final sheets were printed as 12-page signatures (6 pages on the front side, 6 on the back side).
The offset printing machine is constantly recalibrating itself with the help of color test strip in the middle of the sheet. The four printing drums with Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (another word for Black) have to be perfectly setup and synchronized to guarantee the correct color mix.
