At the same time the company invested in three new printing presses. One is a Heidelberg Speedmaster 52 five colour press which takes a larger than A3 sheet and is used for small format printing jobs such as colour envelopes, post cards and letterheads. This press is fitted with a computer controlled infra-red drying unit, which helps reduce the time required to turn a job around. The other two presses are Heidelberg Speedmaster 74's, one a six colour and the other a five colour machine. Both take a larger than A2 sheet and are fitted with the latest computer controls and in-line aqueous coating equipment, which puts a clear protective coating over the entire sheet.
Aqueous coating is compatible with later spot overgloss - either UV or conventional.
The coating is water based and environmentally friendly as it involves no solvents. It provides a full range of finishes from ultra-matt to brilliant high gloss coating in one operation at the end of the press. Work comes off the press virtually dry, thereby helping to eliminate problem of colours drying back, print transfer or of sheets sticking together. It also enables Service Printers to almost immediately carry out further processing such as creasing, folding or binding. Together with a printing speed of up to 15,000 units an hour, this provides customers fast, often overnight, turn-around of their job.