Part of the Metal Type’s Printing Advice section,\u00a0 Phil gives his thoughts on various presses.<\/p>\n
Kluge, Heidelberg or hand fed C & P?\u00a0<\/span>All of these machines are good for Letterpress Printing. \u00a0These machines will do what the makers say that they will do, and there is no doubt about that at all.<\/span><\/p>\n If you have long runs, then you will eschew the hand fed in favour of the other two machines. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However . . . the hand fed C & P will print items that are pretty much impossible on either of the self feeding presses. \u00a0For example, prize ribbons that are 2 inches wide by 15 inches long. \u00a0Or very thin table napkins or round discs. or very thick items, that are up to a quarter of an inch thick, like wood rulers or wood nickels or many other kinds of thick items either of wood or super heavy yardstick.<\/span><\/p>\n The Heidelberg is rather easy to “set up,\u2019\u2019 to run most any kind of job. \u00a0Small cars of down to about and inch and a half to 2 or more inches long are easily fed and printed on a Heidelberg. \u00a0Paper as thick as about 20 thousands of an inch can be fed, and with a special feed bar, even thicker, up to 50 thousands of an inch. \u00a0Heidelberg did make a number of “special attachments for the feeder, to facilitate feeding and printing.<\/span><\/p>\n Super heavy inking on the 10 x 15 was \u00a0not so good. \u00a0Even with the single overrider roller, some forms were well neigh impossible to run. \u00a0I always ran such super heavy inking forms on my 13 x 18 Heidelberg and use the double over rider rollers. \u00a0In addition, I had a set of roller trucks that allowed inking on the lower of the three form rollers on the upstroke only. \u00a0This helped immensely. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However if the job was near a full black out, I reverted to my Heidelberg Cylinder, and if that failed, I just farmed the job out to a nearby \u00a0offset shop. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I have no experience at all with the Kluge. \u00a0I have seen this machines of course and \u00a0talked to various press operators, and these men have invariably told me that the Kluge is a good machine and will print a very wide range of stock at good speeds and with very good quality of print.<\/span><\/p>\nHeidelberg<\/h2>\n
Kluge<\/h2>\n