It had been the last printer in Wales to run a commercial web press.

Managing director Alan Padbury told PrintWeek that the Cardiff firm would now focus on its B1 sheetfed offering, which has been augmented with a new eight-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106 with CutStar that has come on-stream at the same time as the web press was switched off.

“Less than 50% of the business was web, and it is the sheetfed side that consistently makes money,” he said.

“I take my hat off to those who do make money in web offset, but in the end I was getting better rates for my stitching line than for a £4m web press. Fine. It is what it is. I can’t change it, I just don’t have to keep doing it.”

Westdale’s Goss M600 was a five-unit model with spine gluing and inline rotary trimming. It was around eight years old. 

“At the end of last year we lost a regular web contract and I knew we had to do something,” he explained. “Then I was approached by an Italian printer who was potentially interested in the M600. We agreed a satisfactory deal, and it was a fantastic opportunity to come out of that business.”

Padbury said that at least a quarter of the £16m-turnover firm’s work previously produced on the web would easily convert to the firm’s sheetfed presses. Four redundancies have been made from 130 staff, but other employees have been redeployed on the sheetfed side.

“We have always switched work between sheetfed and web, anyway,” he added.

Its press hall now contains three long perfectors: a 10-colour Speedmaster XL105, a 10-colour XL106 and the new eight-colour 106 with CutStar. The firm has also installed a new folder to go alongside the expanded sheetfed offering.

The new 106 has Inpress Control 2 and Autoplate. Ancillaries supplier Technotrans has updated Westdale's ink pumping and central cooling systems to include the new kit.

Padbury said he had “morphed” his previous deal with Heidelberg for two 10-colours to take into account the firm’s revamped requirements post-web, which now better suit having an eight-colour straight printing or perfecting option, alongside the 10-colours.

“We have a rather nice sheetfed line-up and we’re setting our store out as the company to go to for those nicer jobs with tasty paper and finishing – 40% of our work is on uncoated stock. A sheetfed enquiry is twice as likely to turn into a job than a web enquiry,” Padbury stated.

“The web hall will become our paper warehouse, and it will actually open up the factory and give us a better workflow.”

Padbury said some of Westdale’s existing web offset customers have also asked the firm to continue managing their web printing projects.