New binding line for The Shetland Times
The Shetland Times has invested in a new binding line for its commercial printing division
Friday, 05 Apr 2024 16:20 GMT
Studio Graphic Design & Print Shop, a division of The Shetland Times, has invested in the Horizon Stitchliner
The Shetland Times has invested in a new binding line for its commercial printing division, Studio Graphic Design & Print Shop.
Having celebrated its 150th anniversary in June 2022, the company has now upgraded its production capabilities by replacing the Linotype Trimstitch with a Horizon Stitchliner.
Located in Lerwick, Shetland, it’s suspected that this is the most remote northerly installation in the UK for this machine.
It was the Stitchliner’s quick makeready, pagination capabilities, speed of changeover, range of stock it can run, ability to save/return to specific jobs, and the quality of finished products that attracted Studio Graphic Design & Print Shop.
The Horizon Stitchliner has replaced the
Linotype Trimstitch
Larger paginations on the older machine required up to four people to run jobs, however, the Horizon Stitchliner can be operated by a single team member, meaning the additional staff can be deployed in both the finishing and printing departments.
With requests becoming increasingly varied in terms of booklet formats, Studio can now keep more production in-house and have complete autonomy over jobs with binding requirements.
There was only a two-day window between decommissioning the older machine to the first ‘live’ job running through the Stitchliner. However, with Luke Roberts and his team at Roberts Graphics refurbishing the machine to a high standard and providing “excellent training and advice” during the installation, the 56pp, A5 programme was bound to its set deadline.
To streamline production further, the Komori Color+ Spectral colour management system was also recently retro-fitted to the Komori S26 five-colour B2 commercial printing press.
Studio has retro-fitted a Komori Color+ Spectral
colour management system to the Komori S26
Studio has praised Komori engineer Kevin McHale for “invaluable training and advice” whilst installing the new densitometric scanning head and associated equipment.
In addition, Studio’s Screen Platerite 8000 II CTP system from Marlowe Graphics was calibrated and the Komori was quickly running full-colour commercial work. The company has noted a noticeable increase in colour brightness and colour consistency on both short and long runs as a result.
Studio’s Xerox V180 digital press is due to be updated by the end of the month with a new Xerox Versant 280. This is expected to increase control over colour output through the use of a handheld spectrophotometer and more accuracy when duplexing/backing up.
The Stitchliner will now complete much of the finishing of digital work as it is capable of handling larger paginations than the previous Xerox three-knife trimmer.
The Xerox V180 digital press is due to be
updated by the end of the month with a new Xerox Versant 280
An area of growth for Studio is wide-format print and signage with the company producing bespoke stickers, posters, pull-up banners, outdoor banners, window graphics, and more.
The company is also the exclusive supplier of a banner tensioning system to the northern isles which Studio says has withstood “the worst (almost all!) that the Shetland winter weather has thrown at it!”.
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