Is it possible to convert a non plus GTOF to a plus press?

Dear Chaps:

In 1989 with very little experience on my belt I ordered with my father a GTOF 52 to print labels and brochures. I wanted the fifth color to provide over print varnishing, and spot color printing, towards this end I forgo the alcolor dampening system (a big mistake as it is very expensive to retrofit Kompac dampening units to our press even today) and got the fifth color instead (seldomly used today as we have offline UV varnishing and all of our jobs except for uncoated paper go out UV varnished and most of our jobs do not require a spot color except for a few chocolate boxes). I also ignored perfecting 4/1 or 3/2 (I wish I could do 4/1 and 3/2) and numbering as we had rotary business forms facilities and three Heidelberg Minervas.

By the way, we managed after much suffering to find the niche to pay for the expensive press. Despite the fact that our two SORMZ were churning thousands of cigarette flip-top boxes, thousands of gelatin desert boxes and our business forms presses were running day and night, the GTOF was so hard to pay for!

Since we are doing a much more color work in our business forms presses, we were very happy to convert our 1972 Didde Glaser Tandemer press from two color roll to sheet to roll to roll and then to three color and four years later to four color. However, we are limited to non coated papers and ink coverage is very poor. The pneumatic turn bars in our Tandemer allows for perfecting 3/1, 2/2 or straight 4. It has numbering, perforating, imprinting, etc.

Therefore, I wish that I could upgrade our GTOF 52 to at least crash numbering and perforating. A printer that was liquidating his Heidelberg equipment to move to KBA's had a crash numbering complete unit with two cams sans the numbering machines that were missing so I called our Heidelberg dealer to inquire if our press could be retrofitted with the crash numbering and perforating device. He answered with the following words: Since you didn't order your press as a plus, you need a plus to use the crash numbering unit. I replied that if I could convert ours to a plus and he answered: only at the factory. End of story.

The other day we were printing a four color business form with such ink coverage that made the Didde Glaser Tandemer unfit for the job. Of course we choose our GTOF, printed four up and numbered/perforated the two part form in our Heidelberg Minervas, one numbering two originals and the other numbering two copies.

To fulfill the job which came in a rush, like most jobs these days, I worked on a Minerva (very nice press and a relief from office work). But in the end the bottle neck was in the collating which was done manually for all 10,000 units. Since most forms are collated in a continuous forms collator that also makes unit sets. Perhaps the cheapest answer to this question is to invest in a small semi-automatic collator to do the repeat jobs!

However, I wondered if I could have had done the job in our GTOF including the numbering and perforating as we printed the forms. We (still despite being threatened by the ubiquitous smart phone used to purchase the train tickets) run train tickets in our Tandemer press. A four color job and with 25 numbering machines. I however think that a crash numbering unit could be useful now.

A mechanic which also sells used presses said that I could convert our GTOF to a plus version buy buying (from him) a GTO52+ single color and migrating the parts, or that he was going to find a printer that (strangely) could part with the parts (which is the reverse of this story). Can this be made or can the parts be sourced and migrated to our GTOF from 1989?

 

Many years ago i ha a 4 colour GTO and i asked the same question 'can it be converted to plus' to my engineer, the answer was yes, i didnt end up doing it and cant rememeber what the procedure was but if he said it is possible it is possible.

Dont forget all the machines are the same, the Gearing for the numbering is done once the press is built, so it should be pssible to add the gearing if you can get the parts.

It maybe worthwhile speaking to MErlins in Halifax they maybe able to manufacture the parts you need.

 

Hi! Thanks for the clue! Where is your engineer now? Who are these cups at Halifax? I wish to know more! I remember the guys at Atlantic Force saying once that they could convert the GTO to nberting but once I spoke seriously to them they sAid they needed the present be a plus!