A perfect team for faster offset printing

How can we print even faster? This question plays an important role in pressrooms. Press speeds of up to 20,000 sheets per hour are now possible in packaging and commercial printing, but they often lead to a critical ink-water balance. At the same time, printing jobs are getting smaller and smaller, so a stable production with fast control response is important. The team around Frédéric Kocher, Head of Product Development Fountain Solution at hubergroup, has been looking closely at these changing market requirements and considered how they can help printers maintain a smooth printing process, nevertheless. 

High-quality prints at high speed 

Frédéric explains: "In offset printing, the symbiosis of fountain solution and ink plays an important role. It is crucial for a high-quality print. Fountain solution additives regulate and stabilise the ink-water balance, however, conventional fountain solution additives do not manage to maintain this balance at high printing speeds." 

With this in mind, our Fountain Solution team developed PERFECT-DRY-FIX. The new fountain solution additive is specially designed for fast conventional, and UV offset printing. Even at high press speeds, it ensures fast control response behaviour, good wetting of the non-image area, fast plate cleaning, and very stable production printing behaviour. In addition, PERFECT-DRY-FIX supports fast drying and thus rapid finishing of packaging, magazines or commercial jobs. To reduce the workload of printers, Frédéric and his team also made sure that the fountain solution additive ensures a clean fountain solution circuit and reduces the amount of maintenance required for printing presses. 

How teamplay pays off 

But the fountain solution additive is only half the story. That’s why our Fountain Solution team has searched for the right partner on the ink side – and found our sheet-fed series ECO-PERFECT-DRY. Frédéric expounds: “As hubergroup produces both fountain solution additives and inks, we have extensive knowledge in both product categories. When developing our new fountain solution additive, we used this knowledge to create the best solution for our customers. Both ECO-PERFECT-DRY and PERFECT-DRY-FIX promote smooth, environmentally friendly, and fast offset printing – so they make a perfect team. Thus, we had paid special focus on matching PERFECT-DRY-FIX to the already established ink series.” 

As a consequence, printers can expect a particularly high-quality print image and harmonious production with little effort when relying on this combination.

Find more information here: https://lp.hubergroup.com/en/fount-solutions/

Photo credits: Timo Lutz Werbefotografie