Walked into a print shop in Brooklyn and watched them run a job on a 20 year old Heidelberg

The owner said he's never upgrading because the new digital presses can't match the dot quality on certain stocks. I get it for speed but watching that thing run felt like seeing a classic car. Do any of you still run old iron for specific jobs or am I just getting nostalgic over noise and grease?

2 comments

2 Comments

nathanking5d ago

Our shop still runs a 1996 Komori for certain coated stocks because the digital stuff just can't hold that crisp halftone dot like the old mechanical feeders can. If you're doing a 4 color brochure on 100lb gloss text, nothing beats the way those cylinders lay down ink. It's loud and messy and we pay a guy just to keep it alive, but the owner says as long as parts exist it stays.

miles_roberts225d ago

Saw a YouTube documentary about the last guys who repair these old Komoris. They talked about how the ink train on those 90s machines is just built different, more rollers and more contact points. The dot gain is supposedly way more predictable on gloss stocks compared to digital where it can get all fuzzy on the edges. Read somewhere that the mechanical grippers also exert a more consistent pressure across the whole sheet, no micro-banding from the digital belts or whatever. It's wild that parts are still floating around though, must be getting harder to find someone who knows how to adjust the cylinder timing without the manual.