LITHO PRINT - WHAT IS IT?
(a three minute apprenticeship in print)
LITHO PRINT
Like many long-established Printers, our Company’s history started with traditional “Letterpress” print using lead type. But for many years now, the pre-eminent method for general print has been Offset Lithographic or “Litho” for short, although Digital Print is fast gaining market share. See our “Litho or Digital” page for more on this.In spite of being early adopters of Production Digital Print – our Litho Department still moves more paper by far.
We choose the most appropriate presses for a particular type of work – for instance we have an A4 two colour press which has a special feed system dedicated to Envelope Printing and a B3 Shinohara two colour press for printing Business Stationery – Letterheads, Compliments Slips, Business Cards etc and multi-part NCR Forms. This press features in-line numbering and perforating. Both these machines were chosen for their inherent efficiency and productivity for those particular types of work. These machines are generally operated on a two shift system from Monday to Friday, although the facility exists to run to three shifts if required.
FOUR COLOUR PRINT
When it comes to printing four colour work – which constitutes the greatest bulk of the throughput of the Litho Print Room, we choose to use Heidelberg Presses – our current machine being a SM74 (B2 size) four colour machine with an in-line dedicated coating unit.
Using a Heidelberg Press gives us 24/7 access to spares and servicing – especially important with a press which runs 24 hours a day – our Delivery Guarantees make this a necessity.
