Waterless Press Produces Colour Density

Visitors to Offset and Digitaldruck W Klinger in Munich need not look around for the keepsakes from the era of analogue printing which are often found elsewhere.

Visitors to Offset and Digitaldruck W Klinger in Munich need not look around for the keepsakes from the era of analogue printing which are often found elsewhere.

As they enter the main offices, they are greeted instead by some of the historical digital rarities with which Wolfgang Klinger founded his imaging service for advertising agencies 18 years ago.

And in the pressroom in Munich-Unterfohring, eyes are immediately drawn to an almost brand-new KBA Rapida 74 G (Gravuflow) with short-train inking units for waterless offset print, the second press in Germany of this half-format series, which was first presented at Drupa 2004.

The range of services at W Klinger has been revised and extended step by step.

The handling of digital customer data has become one of the established strengths of the company.

It is today possible.

for example, to print directly from all commonly used DTP programs on both the Mac and PC platforms, as well as from the Office applications Powerpoint, Word and Excel.

Wolfgang Klinger began eight years ago with an HP Indigo digital press and later gathered considerable experience with a 74 Karat from KBA and with a Heidelberg Quickmaster 46 DI offset lithop presses.

The former pre-press specialist gradually evolved in to a practised waterless offset printer.

Especially useful for the company's customers is an HKS and Pantone colour guide produced specifically for the 74 Karat press, with which Wolfgang Klinger demonstrates the reproduction of the Pantone and HKS tones with CMYK Euroscale inks.

The DTP programs, such as QuarkXPress or Photoshop, automatically translate the HKS-Pantone colours in to the corresponding CMYK values, ready to be printed on 170gsm art paper on the 74 Karat.

Thanks to the Klinger colour guides, the customer is able to assess how particular spot colours will appear when printed in 4C on the KBA 74 Karat.

It is only necessary to consider that the perceived colour may vary slightly if other papers are used, said KBA.

To be able to handle longer runs, W Klinger has installed a waterless five-colour Rapida 74 G with keyless Gravuflow short-train inking units, a coating tower and dryers at the production facility in Munich-Unterfohring.

That configuration was chosen because many customers are asking not only for top-quality offset print but still also for individual spot colours.

The new press prints from waterless plates from Toray and is offered for runs between 250 and 50,000 sheets at 150 lines per inch (lpi) and 200lpi screen resolutions.

For runs from 25 to 1,000 sheets in 440mm x 309mm format, W Klinger recommends digital print with four-colour 'ink offset' at 812 dots per inch (dpi), or 135lpi and 200lpi screens.

Marking the arrival of the new press W Klinger has developed a comprehensive A5 brochure as information for its customers.

A comparison of the offset proof prints from the KBA Rapida 74 G with the proof results in digital print provides a vivid illustration to the customer of the enormous quality potential of the Gravuflow keyless inking units, thanks to elimination of the disturbing influences of the dampening solution, added KBA, which added that the trained eye is immediately caught by the high and even colour density and the impressive solids.

The application of a 'healthy' ink layer, via an anilox roller operating without ink keys, achieves a smooth printed surface free of all mottling or ghosting effects.

They were facts that clinched Wolfgang Klinger's decision in favour of the Rapida 74 G.

Also important was the possibility to produce the plates for the Rapida 74 G on the CTP systems in the company's pre-press department.

According to KBA, 90 per cent of the print jobs are coated with a dispersion varnish, even if the customer has not expressly requested such finishing.

The reasoning is that the job is immediately dry and ready for further processing, just like the products printed with liquid toner on the digital press.

W Klinger is successful because it is also able to offer a full range of finishing services based on the latest technologies.

Well-tended machinery is at hand on the premises to take care of sorting, collating, stitching, folding, creasing, perforating, die-cutting, envelope insertion, gluing, punching, trimming and laminating.

The company implements ecological waterless offset printing technology and, according to KBA, Klinger need not worry about complicated certification procedures, time-consuming BREF documents, or EU and IVU guidelines.

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