Stencil discarding apparatus and process accommodating different length stencils

In a stencil-making-type printing machine in which plural types of rotary cylindrical drums having printing regions of different sizes can be loaded one at a time, in which a stencil paper provided in the form of a roll is cut according to the printing region of a rotary cylindrical drum loaded therein to form a printing stencil, and a printing operation is carried out with said printing stencil wound on said rotary cylindrical drum, and before a printing operation is carried out for a new original, a used stencil is separated from said rotary cylindrical drum and discarded into a used-stencil accommodating box, the improvement comprising:

• drum type detecting means for detecting the type of a rotary cylindrical drum loaded in said machine;
• memory means for storing as addition data a numerical value corresponding to the length of a used stencil which is discarded in said used-stencil accommodating box;
• control means which adds addition data corresponding to the length of a used stencil which is separated from a rotary cylindrical drum the type of which is detected by said drum type detecting means, to the result of the previous addition, to obtain the latest result of addition, causes said memory means to store the latest result of addition thus obtained, and determines whether or not the latest result of addition reaches a predetermined value;
• and
• notifying means which, when the latest result of addition reaches said predetermined value, makes notification of the fact that said used-stencil accommodating box is filled up with used stencils.