KBA has wowed Drupa visitors with the first sight of the tiny Cortina newspaper press, due to begin shipping in 2002. The Cortina, a shaftless, keyless, gearless and waterless press, has been designed to cram the print capacity of an ordinary four-high tower into a footprint of approximately six square metres at a height of just 3.4m (an eight-high tower comes in at just 7m).

The current version of the Cortina is a one-around, four-across design, but KBA UK sales manager Andrew Bowyer said that the intention was to expand the Cortina concept to cover a whole range of press sizes and configurations.

The 80,000cph Cortina has a run length of around 100,000 from Toray waterless plates, and will initially be targeted at regional weeklies and dailies, but its shaftless design also gives it the flexibility to handle contract printing. KBA anticipates that the manufacturing costs of the Cortina will be "significantly less" than conventionally-designed webs, and maintenance and operating costs will also be greatly reduced. The increased cost of waterless plates and inks will be more than offset, claimed Bowyer, by the reduced waste levels generated by waterless.

The Cortina indicates the commitment of KBA towards an entirely new generation of newspaper presses which will radically alter the economics of offset newspaper production in the UK, he stated.

Story by Karen Charlesworth