the carrier fabric section of the machine is designed and operated with a series of fixed gap nips which serve to control the caliper of the web and can replace compliment off line calendering alternatively a reel calender can be employed to achieve final caliper or complement off line calendering the air press 30 is shown in greater detail by the top view of fig2 and the side view of fig3 the latter having portions broken away for purposes of illustration the air press 30 generally comprises an upper air plenum 60 in combination with a lower collection device in the form of a vacuum or suction box 62 the terms u201c upper u201d and u201c lower u201d are used herein to facilitate reference to and understanding of the drawings and are not meant to restrict the manner in which the components are oriented the sandwich of the wet tissue web 24 between the forming fabric 22 and the support fabric 32 passes between the air plenum 60 and the vacuum box 62 the illustrated air plenum 60 is adapted to receive a supply of pressurized fluid through air manifolds 64 operatively connected to a pressurized fluid source such as a compressor or blower not shown the air plenum 60 is fitted with a plenum cover 66 which has a bottom surface 67 that resides during use in close proximity to the vacuum box 62 and in close proximity to or contact with the support fabric 32 fig3 the plenum cover 66 is formed with slots 68 fig5 extending perpendicular to the machine direction.