➤ It’s a sprightly 90-year-old which gets stronger and stronger daily, while continuing to dance circles around the competition ... and that’s exactly what Baldwin Technology is doing. Established in 1918 in Long Island, USA, the company has celebrated its anniversary year with more new technology and an expanded press ancillaries offering. And in the Asia Pacific, these additions are complemented by an upgraded service network designed to deliver more capability and better response times. With the addition of brush cleaning technology from Baldwin’s Oxy-Dry acquisition, Plunkett & Johnson will complement the existing team in Australia and New Zealand, bringing specialised experience and capability. In south east Asia, a new Baldwin Singapore office led by general manager Billy Lee reinforces the company’s presence under regional president Peter Tkachuk. Baldwin systems are in use at sites of all sizes throughout the region ... installed either as OEM equipment to all major manufacturers or to upgrade existing presses ... and that’s how it was seen at DRUPA – on manufacturers’ exhibits and on the spacious Baldwin technology stand. Baldwin’s systems lead the industry in their ability to improve print quality, productivity and efficiency, while ensuring they have the least impact possible on the environment and supporting the sustainability efforts of the graphic arts industry. Baldwin now has the largest selection of press cleaning systems, with products for blankets and printing cylinders as well as for guide, ink and chill rollers. Several options address automatic blanket cleaning, including Impact Flex – which utilises dry or preimpregnated cloth – ProTech with its ground-breaking brush cleaning technology, and the inexpensive TowerClean for single-width users. In Australia, Impact preimpregnated and dry cloth systems are in use at many News Limited sites, and at West Australian Newspapers, while Baldwin’s brush cleaning system suits the manroland Uniset and Geoman presses used at Fairfax Media’s larger Rural Press sites. And the new Jetstream – which removes dust from a web before printing – is being trialled at News sites in Adelaide and Sydney. Both ImpactFusion-F – with its choice of dry or impregnated cloth – and the ProTech brush system are now available for newspaper and semicommercial users. First practical tests with the ProTech2 NP system have produced very impressive results. At DRUPA, Baldwin presented an ink roller cleaning system – InkRollerCleaner – which simultaneously cleans all units with minimum cleaning fluid use. Filtration is a key topic for newspaper and commercial web users, with Fairfax among those investigating the benefits of Baldwin’s latest technology after successful installations at Webstar and Offset Alpine Printing in Sydney. New CombiLiner systems address ink temperature control and dampening solution preparation and cooling for commercial webs, while LongLife C – developed with Falk GmbH – maximises the active life of dampening solution in a variety of web applications. Transverse-current filtration technology uses low-maintenance ceramic filters and produces a concentrated residue which cheap and easy to dispose of. Baldwin LithoSpray Maxima spray dampening – still perhaps the easiest of retrofit quality upgrades – is now standard equipment on many presses, including the Goss Uniliner 80s being installed at Fairfax sites in Ormiston and Christchurch. Presses at News’s ‘Gold Coast Bulletin’ and ‘Northern Territory News’ sites have the system, which is also being installed on the group’s new KBA Comet line in Hobart. Spray nozzles, valves and control technology ensure optimised control of print quality during press start-up and normal daily production, as well as during long periods of high press speeds. The system includes patented Constant C technology which avoids nozzles being blocked by ink mist and dust. Baldwin has also extended its WebCatcher offering and introduced new systems for inline finishing. These include the newly developed WebSiliconer, which avoids ink being smeared on guide rollers and puts a controlled amount of moisture back into the paper web after heatset drying. Also new is WebTack, a precise longitudinal gluing system which uses carbide ducts to apply glue in contact with the paper web, developed exclusively for Baldwin by Swiss specialist Robatech. Predefined and individually programmable glue patterns enable a fast, waste-saving makeready and give the option of remote motorised adjustment of the applicator heads laterally and towards the web. Baldwin Graphic Equipment Sydney – Ph: (02) 9555 9975 Baldwin Southeast Asia Corporation Singapore – Ph: +65 6221 2166 Email pt@baldwinge.com.au www.baldwintech.com