When North Shore's Print Spot was offered a solution to the common problem of blanket creep from shifting packing on its Speedmaster 52, general manager Tim Walters thought the offer was too good to be true.
He agreed to trial the new product, Finito packaging now being sold by TS Wilson Jnr Ltd, although sceptical to its claims of lasting 50 per cent longer.
Some time later however, Tim says the stick-on blanket packing has proved its worth and works brilliantly. Not only have they had no blanket creep at all, it has helped print quality improvement and he can't envisage having to replace it any time soon.
Tim and his father Murray Walters run the Glenfield off-set printing company they bought seven years ago with the help of six full-time staff. Tim says until he saw the Finito product, he had no idea something like that existed.
Finito comes in sizes to fit most machines and replaces the traditional paper blanket packaging. Made of a polyurethane compound for the SM52, it is fitted by sticking it directly onto the blanket cylinder by its adhesive backing. The surplus is easily trimmed from the rear.
Because the packaging is literally stuck to the blanket cylinder itself, there is no "blanket creep" and is therefore perfectly calibrated, Tim adds.
He says the Finito product should remain in place semi-permanently "unless you have a major crash, but a good printer should be able to prevent that anyway."
Paper blanket packaging, on the other hand, has to be replaced frequently, usually every three months.
Tim says he trialled the Finito packaging because they already uses TS Wilson's Fujikura blankets on the two-colour Speedmaster they bought four years ago.
"We've always been satisfied with their products so we thought we'd give this a go, and we're very pleased we did."
Print Spot specialises in short to medium run digital and off-set printing covering the field from jobbing work through to specialty printing and advertising requirements. It started out as a Royal Sun Alliance in-house print shop, but passed into private ownership in 1992 and was subsequently bought by the Walters in 2000.
