NEW ORLEANS — The Tennessean in Nashville, Tenn., a Gannett Co Inc. newspaper, purchased a new shaftless Uniset press, which the newspaper will use to print USA Today starting in July 2002, MAN Roland announced at the Nexpo show.

The Tennessean selected the Uniset based on a similar press’ performance at Gannett’s production facility in Minneapolis, according to Michael Ciarimboli, production director at The Tennessean.

“Based on printing quality, waste percentage and productivity numbers, it’s the best single-width press printing USA Today right now,” Ciarimboli said.

The press will have a total of 48 printing couples configured into six printing towers, each with eight couples, set on a steel substructure. The eight couples per tower give the newspaper a shorter web lead and flexibility with printing applications, according to MAN Roland.

The Tennessean will be able to run the Uniset as one press with nine webs or as two presses, one with four webs and the other with five. It will also feature a 21.5-inch cutoff and a 38-inch web width.

One of the eight-couple towers will have the capability to run 4-over-4 color on one web, 2-over-2 color on two webs, or a maximum of 2-over-2 colors on one web and 1-over-1 on two webs, according to MAN Roland. The other five towers will have the capability to print 4-over-4 on one web or 2-over-2 on two webs.

Each printing couple features a shaftless-motor-per-bridge drive. Twelve of the 48 drives will have removable, quick-change ink fountains.

“We can change ink colors on the split units by removing the entire fountain rather than cleaning the fountain,” Ciarimboli said. “It actually reduces the amount of waste ink. Instead of taking about 15 minutes to clean a fountain, it should take about five minutes.”

The system will also have MAN Roland’s Turbo Dampener system, which is designed to deliver uniform size droplets for uniform dampening across the printing plate regardless of the press’ speed.

The press will also have two 2:3:3 jaw folders and an in-line quarter folder.

Feeding paper into the Uniset are nine CD13S two-arm, core-driven reel-tension-pasters. The press will have MAN Roland’s Websys system, which includes web lead rollers and web-break detection. Paper will be delivered to the RTPs with Auroload, MAN Roland’s automated roll transfer and loading system. A Tecosys closed-loop tension control system is also part of the package.

Controlling the entire press is a MAN Roland Pecom system, which will include integration with The Tennessean’s mailroom and distribution systems.

The Uniset is an eight-page press that can run at up to 70,000 copies per hour. It is geared toward medium-sized newspapers that require up to 80 pages. The press also has the capability to do semi-commercial work.

“Like Minneapolis, we’re going to be doing a lot of commercial work on it,” Ciarimboli said. “The plan is for the Nashville Offset operation of Gannett Co., which prints USA Today and does commercial work, to be consolidated with The Tennessean, and we’re going to do that work on this press. It’s proven itself to be able to meet the standards of USA Today and do a great job on coldset commercial work.”