Consumables
Tower Clean Successes For Baldwin With Orders From Around The Globe
Friday 04. April 2008 - Baldwin Technology has had a spate of successes for its Tower Clean automatic blanket cleaning system, which has been designed to improve productivity and operator working conditions on single-width presses. Recent installations include printing plants in Berlin and Hong Kong, while new orders have been received from Norwegian newspaper Agderposten and Swedish newspaper Norra Vasterbotten.
A Tower Clean system is currently being installed by Agderposten on a new 72-page Goss Magnum press, which is scheduled to go live during April, replacing a Goss Magnum 4. The new Goss Magnum will be used to print the groups five own titles, including 30,000 copies of the Agderposten, which is published six days a week. It will also be used to spearhead a drive into the semi-commercial market, as manager Rune Andresen explains.
“A significant proportion of the work we handle is for outside companies and we expect this percentage to increase when the new Goss is in full production,” says Mr Andresen. “This is the first Goss press of its type in Europe and it offers output speeds of 40,000 cph combined with a very small footprint. During our research we saw a demonstration of a Baldwin Tower Clean system and we were very impressed by the ease of operation, low maintenance and thoroughness of the blanket clean. In addition, Goss was very complementary about Baldwins Tower Clean system.”
Tower Clean consists of a solvent applicator per tower, brush units and pumping station. The system enables the blanket to be cleaned by contact with the moving web once the small profile applicator has applied a low VOC solvent to the paper. As the web reaches the blanket the brush unit, which is frequently installed only on the first-down blanket, is activated. This removes lint and ink. In addition, the Tower Clean process has a positive cleaning effect on the guide rollers.
Tower Clean has been fitted to presses from a wide range of leading manufacturers such as MAN, Goss, Solna and DGM. The automatic blanket cleaning system can easily be retrofitted to existing presses where newspapers are looking to eliminate manual blanket cleaning during production. The low investment cost, improved print quality and extended print cycle result in a short payback period, while the simplicity of Tower Clean ensures a very low cost of ownership.
Bengt Arvidsson of Newsprint Consulting played a key role in specifying the best equipment for Norra Vasterbotten in northern Sweden and a Tower Clean system will be fitted during the summer on a new eight-unit Goss Magnum, which is being installed at a new printing plant. “Tower Clean is a very cost effective automatic blanket cleaning system that requires little maintenance and provides an excellent clean of the blankets,” says Mr Arvidsson, who worked for many years in the Swedish printing industry before setting up his consultancy.