A new eight-unit singlewide Orient Super press from Printers House Americas LLC is now in production at Waccamaw Publishers Inc. in Conway, S.C.

“Color reproduction on the four-high tower has exceeded my expectations and has been a big hit with my sales staff,” said Steve Robertson, publisher. “Since we installed the press we have been getting calls from advertisers wanting to reserve space on the color pages.

“In fact, we sold a major contract for color advertising a week after our first run. I attribute much of the success for that account to the new press.”

Photo: Printers House Americas
Waccamaw Publishers expects big things from its Orient Super singlewide press, which went on-edition late last year.
 

The one-page-around, 30,000-copy-per-hour press is configured as four mono units, a four-high tower and an Orient X-Cel 2:2 jaw folder. WPI prints three weeklies, The Horry Independent, The Loris Scene and the News & Shopper. It also recently launched a fourth weekly, The Carolina Forest Chronicle. Altogether, WPI prints more than 50,000 copies per week.

 

Robertson said the press’ color capacity is enabling WPI to pursue commercial work it never could compete for before.

“We are now picking up additional commercial jobs and anticipate even more,” said Robertson. “Everybody today wants multiple pages of full color. In the past we had to turn away some jobs because our old press was not capable of meeting the specs they required.”

Color capacity boosted

The press allows the newspaper to print up to five webs with up to four broadsheet pages of process color. That translates to as many as eight pages of back-to-back process color in the News & Shopper and four in the Independent.

Additional 4-color pages are available by using an “S-wrap” direct printing technique with color ink in some mono units.

The machine replaced an older, reconditioned web press.

Robertson said the Super also enabled WPI to compress production. The News & Shopper is now being printed as one 40-page section instead of two, carving six hours from the paper’s former press run. The Independent, meantime, is printed in three sections instead of four, saving four hours.

“We installed an imagesetter-to-plate-bender pin register system allowing the Orient’s motorized remote controlled register system to achieve fast register, which is already cutting start-up spoilage,” said Keevin Beam, pressroom manager. “Maintaining better quality and more consistent register throughout the run with the pneumatic tension system is also reducing running waste.”

Quarterfolding

In addition to the auto-registration features, the Orient sports solid stainless steel plate and blanket cylinders, and swing-down, lever-keyed ink fountains. Segmented ink blades allow better control of ink and more accurate ink settings for better print quality, said Al Taber Sr., PHA president.

The X-Cel folder delivers half- and quarter-page folds, is equipped with double nips and air former boards and can operate at speeds in excess of 30,000 copies per hour. It also has provisions for cross perforation and double parallel folds.