UV Inks & Coatings — Coldset Printers Shine With UV

Knoxville, TN-based Alliance Press is one web offset printing operation that is exploring new print quality and performance potentials with UV coldset web printing.

The initial testing facility for a new ink designed specifically to enable UV coldset web printing, Alliance Press is running the new ink for a variety of full-web, coldset applications. The results: colors are vivid, blacks are deep, and marking and offsetting are no longer issues.

"We have been extremely pleased with the print quality and the additional product options it provides for us," says Matt Edwards, president of Alliance Press. "We are testing the UV process on commercial accounts every week, and the feedback we are receiving is highly positive. Customers are expressing great excitement that we can print on coated stocks, allowing them various opportunities for upgrading their publications."

Edwards sees the UV coldset web printing process as having the potential to fuel overall sales growth at Alliance Press by 35 percent to 50 percent in the coming year.

Is Alliance Press alone in its exploration of UV coldset web printing? Most likely, not for long.

No longer are UV installations showcasing strictly the traditional narrow- and half-web press environments. The ever-present need to maximize pressroom capacity, increasing environmental concerns and the desire to achieve cost savings are all factors contributing to the use of UV technologies in new applications. UV's comparatively small footprint on a shop floor is an additional selling point, and more and more printing operations are buying into the process.

Recently, Flint Ink developed a product that is creating a new area of opportunity for commercial coldset printers. Flint's Arrowlith UV ink technology takes the time tested process of UV curing and delivers it to coldset web printers. The new UV ink system is said to give coldset web printers the ability to print on stocks previously incompatible with coldset web technology, such as supercalendered stock and coated papers, broadening their existing capabilities and increasing pressroom productivity.