Chapter Five:
Thirty to Forty
1970 -- 1980
About 15 minutes of Fame:
By 1969 my assistant was fully capable of performing all of the QC tests on incoming inks and we’d found that a short morning briefing was all we needed. This left me with time on my hands, which I didn’t like, and I began to look around for useful work. I asked Terry what ‘Research’ was going on in Research and Industrial Engineering, and he told me that there was no research, but Zed had liked the sound of it and thought it added a little class to the group. I decided to make the ‘R’ more meaningful.
When I’d chosen a $200 viscometer for the lab rather than a $6,000 instrument I was following a hunch that the accuracy of measurement using the cheaper version could be greatly improved by changing the way it was used. It was an idea that had occurred to me while using one at Fishburns but I had never had a chance to study it in any detail. Now I had time and resources.
This type of viscometer – called a ‘falling rod’ viscometer -- gives a series of numbers which are plotted on a graph. The technician then draws a straight line through the points and the slope of that line gives the viscosity of the ink. The trouble is that the points are never in a straight line and where the tech draws his line is more guesswork than science. I recalled from advanced maths lessons that there was a method of replacing the graph with a numerical calculation which would be much more accurate and much faster. I programmed the equation into the lab’s new Olivetti computer and had it calculate the viscosity for a wide range of values, which produced a set of tables, which made the calculation even faster and easier. I worked on this through the winter of 1969-70, and by early spring I had what I’d been looking for and the proof that it worked.
Ian suggested that I publish, so I sent a proposal to the Technical Association for the Graphic Arts, a very well respected US organisation dedicated to the advancement of graphic arts science and technology. I said that my method allowed a $200 instrument to produce results as accurate and repeatable as those from a more expensive viscometer, a claim eagerly backed by the makers of the lower priced equipment. TAGA wrote to say they liked the proposal and would be pleased to see my paper.
I presented the paper at the group’s 1970 convention, attended by graphic arts specialists from all over the world. It was very well received; the sample tables we had brought with us were snapped up within ten minutes and we returned to Ottawa with requests for many more.
I started to look around for my next project and found it under my nose. At the next year’s symposium I presented a paper on how a simple, low cost ink testing program had cut the cost of CGPB’s ink related press problems from $85,000 in fiscal year 66/67 to zero for the next three years. Cost conscious printers – which means all printers – just lapped it up.
This work brought the Bureau good publicity and international recognition. Our lab chief made sure that everybody at the Bureau learned what was going on in their own house.
About Moving Up:
In 1971 we put a deposit on a semi-detached house in a new development about 15 kilometres west of Ottawa called Westcliffe. In one of my classic ‘wish I’d never said that’ quotes I told Helen “these house prices are artificially inflated; I’m not paying $21,000 for a house, we should wait until the prices drop.”
Helen was always busy, and our marriage was showing signs of strain. She would sometimes come home, throw papers all over the living room floor and bury herself in work for the rest of the evening. She was still making more money than I, and we were living the affluent lifestyle which we’d left England to find, but it was not nearly as satisfying as I’d thought it would be. She was snappy and bad tempered much of the time and nothing I could do seemed to make a difference. I thought she was probably working too hard, but in hindsight I think it was much more than that.