Press vendor TKS, making a major push to woo U.S. newspaper publishers, plans to roll out two new presslines within the next year.

At next month’s Nexpo SuperConference, TKS is formally unveiling its Color Top 5000, its entrant into the 4-by-1 double-wide market. Next year, the vendor plans to introduce a 6-by-2 press and associated material handling technology for newspapers eyeing replacement of their existing systems.

“We see a market niche that we can exploit,” said Mike Shafer, national sales manager, of TKS’ aggressive plans.

Shafer said TKS has already received 10 orders for the Color Top 5000, reflecting bubbling interest.

TKS’ Color Top 5000  shaftless press. Photo: TKS

The shaftless press, under development for the past year, is modeled after TKS’ existing Color Top 3000 single-wide press that’s been available for the last several years.

TKS also offers a third shaftless press, the 4-by-2 Color Top 7000.

“We believe there is a lot of pent-up demand for new press technologies,” Shafer said. “New product introductions are good for the industry; it’s important for newspapers to have lots of competitive press vendors.”

All of the major press vendors have rolled out 4-by-1 presses, a design that boasts four plates across and one plate around each cylinder.

Proponents cite the cost-savings associated with the elimination of double-plating. But 4-by-1s can only be used at straight-run production sites. That eliminates their use at newspapers that want to use two individual plates per cylinder in a bid to double the page capacity of an issue off the same amount of webs.

It’s that type of limitation that causes some newspapers to pause before considering 4-by-1 technology.

“We’ve looked at the concept but I don’t think they fit into our production needs,” said Paul Webb, director of production at TKS customer The Dallas Morning News. “TKS makes awfully good equipment, but we don’t believe [4-by-1] is a direction we will head.”

The TKS Color Top 5000 uses a conventional blanket and has a rated capacity of 70,000 copies per hour. It features a 22-inch cut-off and a web width of 50 inches.

The forthcoming 6-by-2 press, as yet unnamed, is based on a TKS wide-format press Japanese telecommunications company NTT is using to print telephone directories.

TKS is adapting the press, which features wide cylinders, to meet the needs of the newspaper industry, Shafer said. It will feature a 2:7:7 jaw folder to enable publishers to fold more pages simultaneously. A split-reel design and an associated automatic storage and retrieval system will complement the press.

Finally, TKS said a newspaper using its Color Top 7000 press set a new production benchmark during a test.

The Shinano Mainichi newspaper in Nagano, Japan, produced a 16-page full-color publication, “stable printing” at 96,000 copies per hour, according to TKS.

TKS said the only modification the newspaper made in conducting the test was to boost press and postpress production throughput to meet the output. The newspaper usually runs the press at 85,000 cph.