Printing had still not started on the plant's 3.88m-wide Cerutti gravure press at midday today, although white-paper testing began earlier this week.
Polestar's Sheffield project director Mike Young confirmed at noon that there was no ink on paper as yet. "But by midnight tonight, there's a very good chance that there will be," he said.
The presses were being webbed up this morning in preparation for running print trials.
If the press starts printing today, it will mark another on-schedule milestone in the rapid development of the superplant.
The plant's Ferag finishing lines came on stream earlier this month. At the time, Young joked: "We will have ink on paper this month. I'm going to cash in my bets and retire to a Caribbean island!"
Ground was broken for the 43,000sqm plant last July, with the pre-press area completed by October. Press bases were finished in November, while the first gravure cylinder was rolled out in January.
The firm is set to make an official announcement the moment the first printed sheets come off the press.
Story by Josh Brooks
Polestar goes to the wire to hit Sheffield schedule
Polestar Sheffield is locked in an eleventh-hour bid to hit its self-imposed target of putting ink on paper by the end of the month, even if that means running the presses until midnight tonight.
