Patent ID: 7331284

Claim:
A multi-drum stencil printer, comprising: a plurality of printing sections each including a respective print drum and a respective pressing means configured to press a sheet against said print drum; intermediate conveying means positioned between an upstream printing section of the plurality of printing sections and a downstream printing section of the plurality of printing sections, the intermediate conveying means configured to convey the sheet from the upstream printing section toward the downstream printing section in a direction of sheet conveyance; a dual master formed with a first image and a second image configured to be wrapped around a circumferential surface of the print drum in a most upstream one of the plurality of printing sections located at a most upstream position in the direction of sheet conveyance; and controlling means configured to control the multi-drum stencil printer in response to a selected print mode, wherein the pressing means in said most upstream one of the plurality of printing sections is rotated by drive means, said most upstream one of the plurality of printing sections and at least one downstream one of the plurality of printing sections, located downstream of said most upstream one of the plurality of printing sections in the direction of sheet conveyance, includes a single-flow duplex printing section including refeeding means for storing a sheet, the sheet carrying an image on one surface thereof, and then refeeding said sheet toward a gap between said respective print drum and said respective pressing means, a path selector selectively movable to a first position for guiding the sheet toward said refeeding means or a second position for guiding said sheet toward said intermediate conveying means, and switching means for causing said pressing means to remain in contact with said print drum over any one of a first range corresponding to the first image, a second range corresponding to the second image and a third range covering both of said first image and said second image, and when a print mode is selected to produce a print carrying multicolor images on both surfaces thereof, the controlling means controls a positioning of the dual masters such that the dual master wrapped around said print drum of one of the single-flow duplex printing sections has the first image and the second image in opposite positions to the first image and the second image of the dual master used in an adjacent one of the single-flow duplex printing sections.