Jacksonville, FL printer adds to color capacity

Jacksonville, FL printer adds to color capacity

Florida Sun Printing in Callahan, FL, will ramp up a new Quad-Stack 4-over-4 color-printing unit from WebPress, LLC at the end of January, as well as a new UV light tower from Prime UV. The equipment will be used in tandem to allow the printer to enter new markets by courting customers that require coated stocks.

“The additional unit and the UV tower for coated stocks will enable us to wrap broadsheets, tabloids and magazines with coated covers; produce magazines and single coated sheets for insertion and direct mail pieces,” General Manager Bill Guthrie said.

The Quad-Stack/UV system is configured with a folder on one side and a sheeter on the other, allowing flexibility for newspaper, magazine and high-quality, single-sheet production. The Quad-Stack is the fourth for the printer. Florida Sun’s existing units provide cold set web capacity. “The Quad-Stacked technology used by WebPress places the color units stacked tightly together on top of each other to help control fanout and provide tight registration,” Guthrie said. “So even on uncoated stocks, they produce near sheetfed quality.”

Fits niche

Besides providing Florida Sun expanded color capacity for current clients (community newspapers, associations, agencies, and small businesses ) the new Quad-Stack/UV system fits into a specific niche. “The advantage of the UV is that it fits a niche underneath the heatset business,” he said. “Where heatset wants longer press runs, the UV combo is well suited for press runs from 1,000 up to 120,000 impressions.” Guthrie said, diversification was necessary to help its customer base meet the need to grow readership with new products — a trend, that printers are seeing take root across the country and one Florida Sun wants to bring to publishers in the Southeast. “In the Midwest, West and Canada, we see publications putting glossy covers on their products to give a different look and a new opportunity for advertisers. We want to offer something different than what is being currently offered for the communities we serve — and to make it available at an affordable price.”