Need help on setting printing business

Hi

I am in the process of setting up a printing business have done some homework but require help in purchasing printing equipment
will be printing small black/white booklets with colour cover
pls recommend machine.
Would 2 colour do the job?
Wanted to purchase rotaprint GTA but cant find any suppliers
Can anybody shed light on heidleberg GTO 52

 

How much money have you got to spend? what sort of work you planning on doing

 

Hi.

If you're just starting up, I'd say you'd be better off with a GTO - even a single-colour one. You can pick them up for relatively little money (your delivery van will probably cost more!) these days and they are a very forgiving press. If you have a longer run to do, you can set the press off and leave it to it while you go and make phone calls, put the kettle on, cut paper for the next job etc. In my experience, this just wasn't possible with Rotaprints unless you got the feed set-up absolutely spot on.

I used to have an R30/90 and a Delta 95. They both printed well but were far more difficult to operate than the GTO. The GTO also has 4 forme rollers rather than the 3 on the Rotaprint.

I friend of mine runs a GTO52Z (2c) ... I think he ONLY does cmyk work on it these days - they use a PM46-2 for the 2-c spot colour work, and to great effect too. He often runs both presses at the same time.

Have you considered a portrait press? It may be worth thinking about because the wider choice of platemaking options available to you.

I hope this helps and doesn't sound like utter nonsense!

Cheers.

 

If you are looking to get yourself a small format offset press, then I must agree with Chris. The GTO52 is an unbeatable piece of machine, unless you get to specialized printing, in which the KBA Genius 52 excels.

Depending on the quality of the GTO you want, you can get a GTO52 in relatively good shape and working condition for as little as US$ 7000. A GTO52 in perfect condition and with a higher build year should be worth roughly US$ 25000-30000.

Cheers.

 

GTO's must be expensive where Gutenberg comes from but in the UK they are available for less than £10k. You could get a GTOZ52 (ie 2 colour) for less than £20k these days. You could probably pick up a very useable GTO 46 single colour for about £4k if you hunted it down a bit.

The only thing you want to try and get with the GTO (in my humble opinion( is either varn or bareback dampening systems. Preferably varn as it does half the work for you but bareback dampening is also very easy to control. Conventional dampening gives equally good results but with more fluffy rollers that require cleaning and re-sleaving.

A basic GTO has very little automation and hardly any electronics. This may sound like a bad thing but having used them and other more automated machines too, the GTO wins in my mind because there is less to go wrong and more that you, the operator has control over. Good plates is the main thing. That's what will determine the quality of the printing you produce.