Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: April 27, 2007 07:34AM

Just got back from installin this baby down in Baton Rouge.

This particular machine was a Katrina victim that arrived at our shop in Texas with 9 gallons of water in the gear box and had been standing in 18-24" of water after the roof was blown off the shop it was in

I totally disassembled it, cleaned it all up, reworked a few sub assemblies, installed a new motor and electrical control box (<- both had been underwater which is bad mojo for electrics !), replaced all the lil shit that goes missing over time on one of these machines, performed the usual rebuild operations required on a vintage 1969 Heidelberg press and it's ready to go another 50 yrs or so

Placelowerplace Report This Comment
Date: April 27, 2007 04:36PM

Damn! nice.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: April 28, 2007 01:04AM

Great job, Kim.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: April 28, 2007 03:54AM

Thanks guys ! Though I love playin with cars (and truly anything mechanical, rebuilding equipment for the printing and finishing trades is what I do for my daily bread so I CAN play with cars on the side

Aussie_Frank_2 Report This Comment
Date: April 28, 2007 11:34PM

Good job MrKim, now come down to Australia and fix this piece of American crap, G25 Baker Perkins my company purchased 3 years ago. This press cracks so may plates even at .4 gauge that its driving my PrePress dept nuts. The amount of spares we need to run for a 5 million run is a joke. Give me a good old Heidelberg any day, the other 4 Heidelberg Web presses are a dream.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: April 29, 2007 04:29PM

Crackin out plates truly sounds more like an operator error than a machine problem Frank. Has the operator gotta hard on for someone in pre-press or what ? In my profession we often find operator error to be as common (if not more so) as actual machine issues.

The most common problems in this area are operators taking set-up short cuts, deciding they know better than the manufacturor and implementing their own procedural processes as opposed to the ones outlined by the manufacturor and my real fave ...... lack of simple mechanical maintenance procedures and lubrication of a machines assemblies and sub-assemblies.

So long as a plate is mounted and packed up correctly it's difficult to see how the machine itself would have much to do with it cracking plates out unless the plate adjusting mechanism is exerting undue force on the plates clamping areas and causing it to crack from these forces when performing registration moves to the plate cylinder.

It could even be that a change in plate mounting/packing procedures with this machine might be in order. A sign of pure lunacy is to continue doin the same thing over and over and expecting a differing result from those same actions

Aussie_Frank_2 Report This Comment
Date: May 02, 2007 11:38AM

Hey MrKim

No its the press mate, we have some of the best printers in Australia working for us, even a chap from the US who used to work on the G25. When we moved to ths .4's ( plates ) we dont need packings any more, the .3's + packing was a real problem.
As far as maintenance goes this machine gets the Royal treatment, it is a poorly designed piece of work.The amount of oil it goes through and leaks you could run a small nation on. Australian insurance laws does not allow the fitting of a sump therefore theres always oil / ink build up under the units.
The bend on the plates isnt the best, about 8mm on grip edge / back edge, the grip edge is more prone to cracking, some units more than others. BTW its a 2 unit, 4 colour duplex press, can run 32page Quarto @ 50,000 per hour easy.
Plate size 605 x 985 mm.

Thanks for the feed back mate.

Regards Aussie_Frank