Speedmaster's Faster Output For Casebound Books

Norfolk (UK) company Barnwell Print, with its 164-year heritage, is reinvesting in a B2 format press to bring all the benefits of faster and more efficient production combined with top quality output.

Norfolk (UK) company Barnwell Print, with its 164-year heritage, is reinvesting in a B2 format press to bring all the benefits of faster and more efficient production combined with top quality output.

It will take delivery of a Heidelberg Speedmaster CD74-5 five-colour press next month at its Aylsham plant.

It already has a mixed supplier pressroom and boasts that it would never tie itself into one supplier but would make each equipment investment on the basis of best of class.

Brothers and business partners Julian and Lincoln Barnwell visited Drupa 2004 to review the machines on offer and Julian Barnwell reported: "We saw a big difference with the Speedmaster CD 74.

The innovations were quite surprising; it leapt out as the B2 press to beat.

The sophisticated feed table using a suction belt was good as was the fact that the sheet is suspended on an air cushion to reduce the risk of marking.

Those elements combined with an ability to handle stocks of 0.03mm to 0.8mm were convincing.

It's a damn attractive press." The company has a niche in short run (up to 5,000) casebound books but it also handles a mix of general commercial print in a broad range of runs.

The fifth colour means it could seal work in line, even using scented sealers for some jobs, which the four-colour press it is replacing could not.

That will leave a single-colour B2 press free to handle more mono book and magazine work.

The company will use Prepress Interface to connect a Screen pre-press CTP system to the press, speeding make-ready.

The company's cut, fold, stitch facilities are all up to date and there is no current plan for further investment although regular re-equipment has been a policy for the fourth generation brothers over the past five to 10 years.

The company was established in 1840 and has been run by the Barnwell family out of the North Norfolk coastal town.

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