Stencil printer having a construction for preventing ink leakage

A stencil printer comprising:

• a printing drum having two axially opposite, annular edge portions, a circumferential wall portion extending between said two annular edge portions to define a cylindrical configuration and including a perforated portion and a strip-like stencil sheet leading end mounting portion extending between said two annular edge portions along a generatrix of said cylindrical configuration,
• a transfer roller having a transverse groove at a circumferential portion thereof along a generation thereof,
• a back press roller,
• said printing drum and said transfer roller being rotatably supported and arranged to be close to and in parallel with one another such that said stencil sheet leading end mounting portion is aligned with said transverse groove and for rotating in mutually opposite rotational directions in synchronization with one another,
• said transfer roller and said back press roller are rotatably supported and arranged to be close to and in parallel with one another for rotating in mutually opposite rotational directions in synchronization with one another when the stencil printer is operated with a stencil sheet wrapped around said printing drum and a print sheet fed between said transfer roller and said back press roller for applying an ink image onto said transfer roller with ink supplied through said perforated portion of said printing drum from the inside thereof and said stencil sheet, while said ink image on said transfer roller is transferred onto said print sheet fed between said transfer roller and said back press roller,
• means for selectively shifting said printing drum and said transfer roller from a standard relative position to a second relative position in a first direction and to a third relative position in a second direction opposite to said first direction, wherein a first midpoint of an arc defined by said stencil sheet leading end mounting portion of said printing drum and a second midpoint of an arc defined as a circumferential length of said transverse groove of said transfer roller are just aligned with one another in said standard relative position, said first and second midpoints being selectively misalignable over a circumferential length of a biasing range, said biasing range corresponding to a change in a relative rotational phase between said printing drum and said back press roller for the shifting from said standard relative position to said second and third relative positions, thereby adjusting the position of the stencil print relative to the print sheet,
• wherein the back press roller is selected from the group consisting of:
• (a) a back press roller having a same diameter as a diameter of said printing drum, the total length of the circumferential length of said perforated portion of said printing drum and the circumferential length of the biasing range being smaller than the circumferential length of a part of said back press roller excluding said transverse groove, and
• (b) a back press roller having a diameter which is two or higher integer times of the diameter of said printing drum, said back press roller having said integer number of said transverse grooves, the total of the outer circumferential length of said perforated portion of said printing drum plus the circumferential length of the biasing range being smaller than the outer circumferential length between two adjacent ones of said transverse grooves of said grooves of said back press roller,
• whereby said perforated portion is not exposed to said transverse groove in spite of said relative rotational shifting between said printing drum and said transfer roller within said biasing range for adjusting the position of the stencil print relative to the print sheet.