A professional who sets up and operates machine to print designs on materials, such as cloth, fiberglass, plastic sheeting, coated felt, or oilcloth. Responsibilities include:

• Turns handwheel to set pressure on printing rollers, according to specifications.
• Turns screws to align register marks on printing rollers with register marks on machine, using allen wrench.
• Sharpens doctor blade, using file and oilstone, and verifies evenness of blade, using straightedge.
• Aligns doctor blade against printing roller, using handtools.
• Dips color from tubs into color boxes to supply printing rollers.
• Scans cloth leaving machine for printing defects, such as smudges, variations in color shades, and designs that are out of register (alignment).
• Realigns printing rollers and adjusts position of blanket or back gray cloth to absorb excess color from printing rollers.
• Records yardage of cloth printed.
• Coordinates printing activities with activities of workers who feed and doff machine and aid in setting up and cleaning machine.
• May notify colorist when color shade varies from specifications.
• May mix own colors.
• May mount printing rollers on machine for change of pattern.
• May position knives specified distance from edge of plastic material to trim excess material from edges.
• When printing samples of new patterns and novelty designs, is designated novelty-printing-machine operator or proofing-machine operator.
• May set up and operate cloth printing machine utilizing caustic soda paste instead of color paste to print designs on cloth which shrink to form plisse and be designated plisse-machine operator.