West Australian Newspapers Holdings in Perth kicked off a 192-printing-couple press from Koenig & Bauer AG that blends a doublewide coldset Colora with a singlewide heatset Comet press.

The vendor said the unified machine is the world’s largest coldset/heatset hybrid newspaper line, encompassing 24 reelstands, six folders and an automated reel handling system with AGVs.



Photo: KBA
West Australian Holdings’ new KBA press combines a doublewide coldset Colora with a singlewide heatset Comet in order to produce newspapers and magazines.
 

“West Australian Newspapers has introduced several new formats to its stable of products thanks to the versatility of the hybrid configuration of the KBA press, ” said Liam Roche, WANH’s general manager for group operations and information technology.

 

“Stitching on-press, quarterfolding, gluing and heatset/coldset combination products are all now common production features from the new presses.”

The doublewide 18-tower, 22.75-inch cutoff Colora is engineered to handle web widths from 48 inches to 68 inches and can print up to 576 tab pages. The Comet, equipped with two thermal air dryers, can print up to 64-page coldset copies, 96-page hybrid coldset/heatset copies or 32-page heatset copies — all tabloid.

The Comet has the same cutoff as the Colora and a web width of 39.5 inches. It features a gluing unit, plow fold, length and cross perforators, section stitcher and quarterfold capability, KBA said.

Separate ink systems

The Comet’s heatset towers have separate ink feed systems to allow heatset inks with different viscosities to be used for smooth or matte paper. EAE provided the press’ controls and press presetting system.

The presses are positioned in parallel, and are designed to allow two heatset webs from the Comet to be diverted to the Colora, enabling WANH to produce coldset tabs with heatset covers or inner sections.

WANH prints The West Australian (Monday through Friday, 200,000; Saturday, 300,000) as well as 19 regional titles, the weekly West Weekend magazine and numerous commercial publications. Roche said the variety of products pose some particular press challenges.

 “Some of our unique products, such as live tabloid books as large as 192 pages along with added content (preprints and commercial inserts) that can see us publishing finished newspapers in the 600-page tabloid equivalent range, in turn provide some unique challenges, particularly in terms of folder performance.”

WANH spent more than $185 million (U.S.) to upgrade its Herdsman print facility to house the press and Ferag postpress operations.