“With the 34DI we are producing print faster with no compromise on quality,” said Abbotsgate Hull managing director James Adkins, who paid £85,000 for the press.
“We can now spread work over three areas: digital, DI 'digital offset', and long-run conventional offset printing, depending on the print run.
“The press produces print far superior to that on conventional presses in half the time with minimal operator intervention. It was an addition to our existing line-up.”
The Presstek certified pre-owned machine was installed around three months ago.
Adkins, whose company was established in 1977, said: “We needed to bridge the gap between our digital machines and long-run conventional offset presses.
“Customers demand shorter print runs and quicker turnaround times. The 34DI is a compact four-colour SRA3 press that sits neatly in today’s market for 500 to 20,000 full-colour print runs.
“It's a quick-turnaround machine: makereadies can be done in under 10 minutes and you can't achieve that with conventional machines.”
He added: “Pre-press now only involves impositioning the files and dropping them onto the RIP. Makeready times have been cut in half offering total time savings of over one hour per job.
“This not only allows us to take on more work, but it saves over £8,000 on labour each year. We expect the Presstek to add £150,000 to £200,000 a year to our turnover.”
Six-staff Abbotsgate Hull turns over £300,000 printing booklets, leaflets and business cards for customers from Southampton to Leeds.
Adkins, who also runs a Heidelberg GTO, a Ryobi SRA3 machine and a Sakurai Oliver B2 press, also considered buying a digital press.
“But we wanted something nearer to a litho machine and Presstek is the only machine in that market,” he said.
The 34DI produces up to 7,000 SRA3 sheets per hour on substrate thicknesses from 0.06mm to 0.5mm, supports 300lpi and FM screening and offers a low average cost per page for 500 to 20,000 impressions.
Presstek Europe sales manager for digital printing systems Simon Cosh said: “When we first approached Abottsgate about the Presstek DI press, they were sceptical.
“They assumed it was another digital production machine that came with a click charge and would be temperamental running light or heavy stocks.
“However, after we conducted a DI press demo and put them in touch with another DI owner they recognised the difference between digital and DI digital offset printing.”
