New press brings better quality to Insta Print

By David Silverberg

Special to Business Today

POPLAR BLUFF -- To handle a tremendous increase in business, Insta Print is undergoing an extensive remodeling project and has installed a new press.

"Our volume has increased 10-fold in the past year and we felt a need to improve our press capacity to accommodate the increased volume," said Don Schrieber, publisher of the Daily American Republic. "The new press will allow us to turn jobs around faster for the customer.

"We also are undergoing a full remodeling of the office, which will make it the most professional print shop in town. The staff has worked very hard under the leadership of Christy Pierce, Insta Print's manager, throughout the past few years. Because of the increased volume, we are able to make this large investment in the press and remodeling of the office," Schrieber said.

Pierce emphasized the main goal is to keep Insta Print's customers very satisfied.

"With the new look of the front office and the added equipment, it will make the staff even more efficient than before. Our turnaround time is good now as is our quality and price, but the staff at Insta Print is not satisfied with good. We want to be the best. Our customers are our business," Pierce said.

The new, two-color offset press is capable of printing 10,000 sheets per hour.

"It is a nice addition to their print shop. It will improve the already high quality of services to their customers," said Peter Wulff, a technical specialist from A.B. Dick, a Presstek Company in Chicago.

The A.B. Dick 9985 offset press was delivered Nov. 19. Ed Dow, a co-owner of Specialized Office Services in Cape Girardeau, and his crew installed the press.

Wulff arrived Nov. 22 and extended power to the press. The next day, Wulff and Dow inked the machine, made ink and water adjustments and then checked the cylinders for pressure adjustments prior to a test run.

The new press is designed for operator convenience and it will make the print shop operations more efficient. It has an array of features that simplify operation and consistently delivers high quality output.

"A built-in microcomputer provides centralized push-button control of many press functions," Wulff said. "Additionally, at the end of a specified run length, all machine functions are automatically returned to the start position to maximize productivity."

The press features two easily accessible individual printing heads. Each one incorporates 16 inking rollers.

"Each printing head can be operated independently for single-color work or simultaneously for two-color applications," Wulff said. "It is a high quality two- and four-color process press."

Wulff said the press can accept sheets up to 13 3/8-by-17 3/4 inches and prints an image area of 13-by-17 1/4 inches. Because the press maintains a high quality paper registration, the sheets can be fed through a second time for a four-color process.

The printing heads feature a unique five-cylinder configuration. There are two plate cylinders and two blanket cylinders.

"Separate blanket cylinders ensure there's no ink migration to provide consistent color throughout the run," Wulff said.

A double surface impression cylinder allows both colors to be printed without a gripper change to ensure excellent registration. A separate transfer cylinder ensures accurate paper registration, according to Wulff, who has 26 years of experience with A.B.Dick.

In addition to being much faster, the new press accepts sheets fed in by the portrait edge instead of the wider landscape edge.

"We also are adding two upgrades," Wulff said. One is a Kompac Automatic Dampening System that transfers ink and water to the plate. The other one is an Air Tech infrared dryer that quickly dries the ink on the sheets.

"This is the first press of this type with the latest in inking technology to be installed in Southeast Missouri," said Brad Eggimann, co-owner of Specialized Office Services.

Insta Print press operator Lonnie Tilley is very pleased with the new equipment.

"The quality is 100 percent better. It is going to make us very productive," Tilley said. "Oh man, this is the Cadillac."

David Silverberg is a staff writer at the Daily American Republic.