The (Hilo) Hawaii Tribune Herald is moving to 3-page-wide production on its singlewide press in a printing expansion project to be completed this summer.

Al Taber and Associates LLC is overseeing the project, which includes the addition of a reconditioned Urbanite unit to the Tribune Herald’s existing 7-unit Goss International Corp. Urbanite press and the installation of a web realigner that will permit 3-page-wide printing.

“The paper talked to us about installing a unit addition, but then we discussed the concept of going three-page-wide,” said Taber.

Photo: Al Taber
Compact, modular and stackable single-web realigner angle bars manufactured by Web Specialties can be mounted over an Urbanite, Orient or Community unit to facilitate three-wide production and web-width reduction. The Hawaii Tribune Herald’s pressline will incorporate a single realigner mounted in front of the folder and a stacked pair of realigners behind it.
 

The realigner turner bar arrangement, supplied by Web Specialties, slits the product into two ribbons, one two pages wide, the other one page wide. The device then realigns the two ribbons for proper placement over the press’ folder former boards.

When the upgrade is completed, the Tribune Herald will shrink its web width from 50 inches to 46 inches. Its cutoff will remain at 22.75 inches.

More color, paging

Three-wide production, along with the additional unit, will give the Tribune Herald a 50 percent increase in page count and add 10 pages of process color — from eight pages to 18 — (and six of spot color) in one collect run, allowing the paper to meet advertiser demands for more color positions.

“Everyone wants more color these days and in the past few years we have had to do many more runs just to achieve the color we need,” said Arlen Vierra, production director at the Tribune Herald. “This pressline rearrangement will allow us to provide more color pages with fewer press runs.”

Taber said the same modification can be performed on Goss Community presses as well as on Orient presses from Printers House Americas.

Pressline Services Inc. debuted a similar singlewide press modification service late last year. Its first client, The Daily Times in Salisbury, Md., went on-edition with its re-engineered Urbanite press earlier this year.