The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., is adding heatset drying to its Flexible Printing System press.

The paper, which earlier this year became the first U.S. publisher to order an FPS from Goss International Corp., is using the triplewide machine to anchor a new production plant slated to go into operation in 2009.

Graphic: Goss International
The FPS press to be installed at The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., will be equipped with a Goss heatset dryer attached to one of its four printing towers.

Although the initial order didn’t include a dryer, Operations Director John Jenkins told Newspapers & Technology that the market’s potential for heatset printing justified the investment.

“We have a high level of confidence of success and it fits our potential anticipated product range,” he said.

The Free Lance-Star will cloak one of the four 6-by-2 FPS printing towers with a Goss Ecocool dryer with integrated chill rolls. The tower will be engineered to allow the paper to easily convert to coldset production when needed, Jenkins said.

Installation of the press, along with associated Goss and Ferag postpress components, will begin in mid-2008.

The FPS will be configured with a 72-inch web width, two 2:5:5 jaw folders and four pasters. The 90,000-copy-per-hour machine will be able to produce, in full color, 48-page broadsheet products running straight, 96-page broadsheets running collect and semi-commercial products with ribbon widths of up to 36 inches.

Forum LLC, the firm designing The Free Lance-Star’s plant, said the addition of the dryer will force only minor modifications to the building.

The Free Lance-Star will join the Butler (Pa.) Eagle and the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah, as U.S. newspapers with hybrid coldset/heatset machines. The Eagle commissioned its Goss Uniliner doublewide press in 2003 while the Standard-Examiner’s singlewide Koenig & Bauer AG Comet press went into production in late 2000.

Meantime, Italian printer Societa Tipografica Siciliana SpA (STS) ordered a Goss Universal 75 press for its plant in Catania, Sicily.

The press, configured with four four-high towers and a 2:3:3 folder, will have reelstands positioned at a 90-degree angle to conserve on space.

STS prints local editions of a number of national dailies, including Milano Finanza and Il Corriere della Sera.

Italy’s Seregni Printing Group, is adding a Goss Uniliner four-high tower to an existing press at a print site in southern Poland.

The shaftless tower will increase the machine’s color capacity to 64 tab pages through one folder or 32 through two folders, Goss said.

In Sweden, Norra Västerbotten Tidnings AB ordered an eight-tower Magnum 4 press that will be installed at a production site currently under construction in Skelleftea.

The press will feature a 21.5-inch cutoff, taking Norra Västerbotten’s flagship title of the same name from Berliner to a new tabloid format.

The press has also been specified with Goss Omnicon Level 3 controls with remote control of ink keys and presetting of key auxiliaries.

The press will be in production next fall, Goss said.