A pressroom cleaning solvent ignited and caused a fire at Tansleys Printers in Seaford on 30 November 2017.

As a result of the fire a six-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 52 B3 perfector was written off, alongside a Konica Minolta bizhub Press C1060 and a fleet of finishing kit, while much of the firm’s other kit was damaged in the incident.

“Where the fire spread across the building, it also wrote off a collator, a Matrix laminator, a folding machine and a little bookletmaker,” said Tansleys Printers managing director Daniel Tansley.

A GTO 52 single-colour press with numbering and perforating required a complete overhaul and new rollers due to heat damage while a Komori Sprint 28 two-colour B2 press that had filled up with smoke required an intensive deep clean and new rollers.

A Heidelberg Cylinder also needed cleaning while the firm’s 185sqm premises had to be totally scrubbed and repainted.

The company quickly re-equipped and, with help from its suppliers and the local community, was back in 80% production within six weeks following the fire.

“Our customers were also really supportive and all the staff were really fantastic,” said Tansley.

Tansleys’ insurer has accepted its claim and has paid out some money to the firm to partially cover the investment in replacement kit. While it awaits a final settlement, it has also used a short-term loan provided by Compass Business Finance.

Replacement machinery included a secondhand five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 52, supplied by AMS Graphic Machinery, a Xerox Versant 180, supplied by Smart Print, and two machines from Morgana – a DigiFold Pro folder-creaser and a BM350 bookletmaker.

All of the new kit was in by the end of January, with the Morgana equipment the most recent to be installed.

“We’ve got a collator attached to the new bookletmaker, which means we can finish many shorter run jobs an awful lot quicker than we could on our old hand-fed bookletmaker,” said Tansley.

“And the DigiFold Pro is absolutely fantastic – we used to finish a lot of jobs on the Cylinder for creasing, and prior to folding, but this creases and folds in one pass and the set-up cost is much cheaper than with the Cylinder.”

Established in 1981, family-owned Tansleys Printers has 12 staff and a turnover of around £750,000. It produces commercial work including business stationery, brochures and flyers for customers around the UK.