Kettering-based Eclipse, which is about to make its first move into web printing, also signed up for the UK's first Polar 137 Autotrim fully automated guillotine, taking its spend at the show to more than 3m.

The new press is scheduled to arrive at the company mid-2005 and will replace an existing 12-colour machine, which by that point will be three years old. "We usually replace our presses after two years. This is the first one we've replaced after three but it was always in our plans to do that. Our impression count will be 120m-130m at that point," said managing director Simon Moore. "We get a machine working hard and you have to change it within a reasonable life-span to get optimum performance."

Eclipse has been a forerunner in the UK long-perfecting market and currently runs one 12-colour and two 10-colour Speedmasters, all of which are fitted with CutStar sheeters. One of the 10-colours, a two-year-old machine, will be taken out in August/September of this year when the company's first web press, a six-colour 16pp Heidelberg M600, is up and running.

The web will be housed in a new factory based next to the firm's existing premises. Its new Polar guillotine, which arrives in August, will also go to the new site. Last week the company revealed that it was taking delivery of a second Creo B1 platesetter to feed the new web. That too will be housed in the new unit.

Sales director David Birkbeck said the firm had no plans to compete in the commercial web market. It had bought the M600 "to do the same type of work more efficiently. We're already involved in web-like runs," he said. The firm's average run-length is 40,000-plus.

Eclipse, which employs 90 staff, is on target for sales of 13m this year. "Our aim is to achiecve 16m with 100 people next year," said Moore.

Story by Lauretta Roberts at Drupa