The new press, which represents the “lion’s share” of the investment, according to Finger Prints managing director Alan Kerr, will be installed in its 20-staff main Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria production hub on 12 November and should be up and running by the end of the month. It replaced a 10-year-old five-colour SM 74.
The investment programme has also seen Finger Prints upgrade its Heidelberg Prinect pre-press workflow and bring in a Suprasetter platesetter, alongside a Ricoh Pro C5100 digital press, an HP Latex printer and a Matrix laminator.
Representing the 40-staff firm’s first foray into LE-UV, Kerr said that he considered options from four main manufacturers during the purchasing process but settled on the Speedmaster due to lower maintenance costs and the fact that his operators are used to the technology. Once the press is operational, some of Fingers Prints’ digital work will be migrated back to litho.
“We’d been keeping an eye on LE-UV for a number of years and quite liked the idea of the cleanness of the printer, doing away with spray powder and the ability to turn jobs around quite quickly because we have a confined working area,” said Kerr.
“We looked at conventional and LE-UV and quite quickly discovered that the benefits outweighed the negatives for the UV press. The fact that we can see the finished result on the paper rather than looking at something and thinking ‘Is that colour going to be right once it dries?’, especially on complex stocks, that was massive.
“The quality coming off digital is superb but in terms of litho I still don’t think you can beat litho printers and if we don’t have click costs it’s an easier job to finish."
The 15,000sph press takes maximum sheets sized 530x740mm and handles stocks ranging between 0.03mm and 0.6mm in thickness. Finger Prints’ machine has been configured with high pile delivery. Kerr added that the extra cost of the LE-UV inks would not represent much of an increase and would be mitigated by advanced processes using less chemicals and reduced turnaround times.
Finger Prints, which has smaller subsidiaries in South Lanarkshire, Wiltshire and Somerset, also runs a Heidelberg Quickmaster 46 for NCR work, along with a further range of finishing equipment. The £2m-turnover outfit is considering investing further in property over the coming three or four years but has called time on the machinery investment programme for now.
