Here are a few photos and videos showing you what it's like at a commercial printers.
Centreprint
These photos are from inside Centreprint. They did a great job of printing the Print Handbook. You can see there complete plant list here:
This is where the printing plates get made
The Heidelberg Quickmaster 2 colour is the machine that handled the black on the cover
The inner pages are printed on this 5 colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL75
All this kit to get the colour spot on
Ink constantly being poured into the press
You can see the 4 process inks going in
The Heidelberg Speedmaster XL75 has an appropriate name – it can print 12,000 sheets an hour
A stack of handbook inner pages ready to be stitched to the cover and trimmed
Print handbook covers ready for folding
Videos
We've collated a few videos which give a good idea of the workings inside a commercial printers.
A very similar press to the one used to print the Print Handbook's inner pages. View video at vimeo.com for full credits.
This is a great video showing the making of some Field Notes notebooks. The first half shows the letterpress printing of the covers. The second half (from 4:35) shows a more typical commercial printers. View video at vimeo.com for full credits.
The Field Notes covers are being foiled here. The Print Handbook's foil is created in the same way. View video at vimeo.com for full credits.
A few more videos
If you still want to see a few more videos then check these out. They're not quite so well done but they're still pretty interesting.
And if that's still not enough check out these ones. Hilarious.