Stephens & George adds two high output Stahlfolder TH 82-Ps

Print Solutions

Stephens & George Print Group has returned to Heidelberg for folders after a short break with another supplier. It installed a first Stahlfolder TH82-P in November and, following on from its great success, it will add a second in March.

Everything at Stephens & George is about speed and efficiency; it is a truly industrial printer. With a battery of five Speedmaster XL 106 presses (10, eight and five colour) all highly specified with spectral measurement, CutStar reel to sheeters and enhanced plate changing, it needs finishing operations that can keep pace.

‘In one 11 and a half hour day shift the TH 82-P produced 150,000 sections and that was matched again by the night shift, meaning 300,000 in a 24 hour period. This was for a long run job but even with changeovers the productivity of this folder is very, very impressive,’ said Andrew Jones, managing director.

Heidelberg says its Stahlfolder TH 82-P, which features the PFX shingle feeder, can output up to 16,000 16 page A4 sheets an hour at a machine speed of just 150 metres a minute. The shingling or overlapping of sheets allows the machine to fold a higher quantity without ramping up the speed which means better sheet control (for which read high quality folding) and higher output.

Stephens & George currently has ten folders. The first TH 82-P is handling 16 page sections, the second will handle 32 page sections. At this stage how many ‘life expired’ folders these two high output machines will replace remains to be seen.

Staff have adapted to the new Stahlfolder TH 82-P and the higher output mindset. The TH/KH 82-P series of folder was launched at drupa last May and it was seen and evaluated there by Andrew Jones and his colleagues.

Stephens & George handled 14 million 16 page sections and four million 32 page section in January. The print for The Magazine Printing Company, a company which Stephens & George bought last year, is now handled at the Merthyr Tydfil plant and nine of the MPC staff have moved across to the Hoddesdon base which handles customer services and administration.