Worst Press Ever Made?

Discussion in '4-Color Offset Presses +' started by RichardK, Nov 29, 2010.

  1. pressman57

    pressman57 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2009
    Messages:
    52
    Location:
    SanDiego USA
    I was told thirty years ago that if you can get good work off a Multi you can run anything, and I still believe it. This was by a guy who learned to print on board a ship in the Pacific during WW2, running a Multi.
     
  2. RichardK

    RichardK Senior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2007
    Messages:
    685
    Location:
    Derby, UK
    Dreissig, OK it's not a litho press it's a bronzing machine but it was hell on earth to run. Silver powder was the worst...being aluminium flakes and so much lighter than the bronze powder it got everywhere - one shift later I looked like the Tinman out of Wizard of Oz.

    Anyone out there had bronzing experience...you have my utter respect and sympathy :D
     
  3. 5150pressman

    5150pressman Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 2008
    Messages:
    113
    Location:
    san francisco bay area
    No one has mentioned Harris presses. The few I seen were pretty bad.
     
  4. RichardK

    RichardK Senior Member

    Joined:
    Aug 2007
    Messages:
    685
    Location:
    Derby, UK
    How about Oris? We (FT Neufville 1987) took one in part-ex for a Komori - boy, was that a dog of a press.
     
  5. Nmeg

    Nmeg Member

    Joined:
    Jul 2010
    Messages:
    7
    Location:
    sat at home
    Harris webs?
     
  6. 5150pressman

    5150pressman Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 2008
    Messages:
    113
    Location:
    san francisco bay area
    Harris sheetfed presses.
     
  7. Nmeg

    Nmeg Member

    Joined:
    Jul 2010
    Messages:
    7
    Location:
    sat at home
    Never knew they made them, must look up some vids or pics of them.
     
  8. FSA

    FSA Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2011
    Messages:
    312
    Location:
    Winnipeg, Manitoba
    Good one RichardK, well I've run mutli's and they suck, harris well I guess I had a couple of good ones and a 2colour that had attitude, but I would have to say the worst press for me was a 8colour Goss ! Two years and I don't think that it finish one job it started, I understand that a used machine have problems, but really. Sheet feed for me is a 43x60 meihle 5colour from the early 50's, that press broke a few bones on more than one preson, myself included.
     
  9. big mac

    big mac Member

    Joined:
    Oct 2010
    Messages:
    14
    Location:
    Northern Ireland
    Yeah I agree Dominant not great but the biggest problem I ever had was with an Ab dick 9810 with second colour head-absolute arse ache!!!

    Mac
     
  10. Chris from Printshop

    Chris from Printshop Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 2010
    Messages:
    65
    Location:
    England
    I'm surprised by that ... I used to run 9810XC with the T-51 when I first started running presses and found it easy. I'd often use the T-51 instead of the main printing unit because it had an extra form roller and better damper. Common-blanket presses have built in problems but I guess this shows that no 2 presses are the same.
     
  11. HPC

    HPC Senior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2011
    Messages:
    125
    Location:
    Illinois
    1982 2 color Didde 860, brand new. After 2 years of countless breakdowns, downtime, parts wearing that shouldn't have, electrical problems never found or fixed we finally got into it with the manufacturer, three file folders thick of problems. We settled on a walk away number, but still got stuck with the press. 4 years ago I had the pleasure of escorting it out the back door to the scrap yard.
     
  12. henrym

    henrym Member

    Joined:
    Oct 2010
    Messages:
    10
    Location:
    schamburg Il USA
    The first offset press I ever worked on was a Harris 2-color, built in 1953, conventional dampening, every control was manual, but I learned more on that press than I ever learned on any other press. Also worked on mid 60s 2-color and early 70s 4-color Harris. they all were physically hard to work on by design but the Harris presses were well built and could print and hold a dot well. I also ran a Harris heat set web for 20+ years we literally wore that press out (1976 to 2003) and even being the "stone age" press it was it still printed well.
     
  13. Chris from Printshop

    Chris from Printshop Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 2010
    Messages:
    65
    Location:
    England
    I think there's a lot to be said for presses with manual controls. I have a GTO myself which has no electronics at all. It's all levers and handles. As a result, it doesn't go wrong. It can print anything and do it just as well as much more expensive presses. The only drawback is that it isn't the fastest press in terms of run-speed or set-up time. But I can live with that.
     
  14. graficworx

    graficworx Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2010
    Messages:
    30
    Location:
    Seattle, WA
    Davidson's, Solnas, ATF, Multi's, I always had so much feed trouble on them, but maybe it was because they were worn out before I was even born. Like was previously said, you could not leave them alone, otherwise all hell could break loose. I even had new vacumn pumps on them with Big Feet suckers, and still they would screw up, and not even a consistent screw up. I would spend hours getting the paper feed all squared away for a job, them for no reason the impression wouldn't go on, the delivery jogger would bind, ugh, they were all bad... and are consequently in my scrap pile as we speak.

    I can setup a 3302 and let it run all day, and never an issue, an if it jams bad, it stops automatically. Ah, modern technology.
     
  15. GavinO

    GavinO New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2011
    Messages:
    1
    Location:
    Melb, Australia
    Roland 700. Doesn't matter what version or configuration. Known by many former operators as a Roland 350 (i'll let you figure out why)
     
  16. HPC

    HPC Senior Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2011
    Messages:
    125
    Location:
    Illinois
    LOL... Take Didde, drop the D add "sh"... nuff said.
     
  17. rolandman

    rolandman Senior Member

    Joined:
    Oct 2009
    Messages:
    254
    Location:
    UK
    this does seem to be the opinion f alot of 700 operators but i honestly havnt found that to be the case
     
  18. imagesetting

    imagesetting Member

    Joined:
    Feb 2011
    Messages:
    12
    Location:
    London, UK
    Rotaprint Delta 35, with a Socbox numbering system, what a f****** circus.
    Why did they even bother.
    So glad when that was wheeled away, went to India as I remember, for what purpose I dont know - a right piece of s***.
    Heidelberg GTO, twice the weight, and twice the cost, but designed to do the job !
    http://www.imagesetting.com
     
  19. discountprintingservice

    discountprintingservice Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2007
    Messages:
    141
    Location:
    Georgia
    Well, I have read these posts...I have run duplicators to large half size presses, ABDick, Multilith, Chief, Solna, Adast, Ryobi, Toko, Heidelberg, Man Roland, Meihle Favorites and others. Out of all of them, the only really bad ones were ones that were not maintained well or operators that did not know the correct way to operate it. I have seen many times a new press come in to a shop, an operator jump on it with no training and not reading the manual and paper hits the fan so to speak, same is said for operators who adjust mechanisms and things like feeder timing when they didn't know what they were doing...leave that for the techs or those operators trained to do it....I have run nice 4 color on most all of the above presses and 1 & 2 color on all of them, and the only ones I have had problems with were ones not maintained well or during a learning curve...my favorites out of them are Multilith 1250's for their registering ability, Ryobi 3200's for general fast production 1 & 2 color and Ryobi 500N's for pull guide 2 & 4 color work (I did some really nice process color work on them that looked better than off the 26" Heidelbergs I ran...oh, and Crestline's are by far my favorite dampening systems, a close 2nd is Kompacs, then Conventional molletins, dahlgren's and last the bareback's like on multi 1250's & abdick 360's (they were the worst by design)
     

  20. imagesetting

    imagesetting Member

    Joined:
    Feb 2011
    Messages:
    12
    Location:
    London, UK
    I agree, old tat should be skipped, or be well maintained.
    We spent £1000's in repairs and maintenance chasing rogue issues on the Delta, it was virtually stripped apart and put back together by several Rotaprint engineers - to no avail, so frustrating (and costly). I wish we'd never set eyes on it. As soon as it went life became sane again.
    http://www.imagesetting.com
     
Loading...