COMBIJET 9NET of Planatol glues commercial print work in the largest web offset press in the world

At the end of April, the Spanish printing plant Altair, based in Seseña (Toledo) near Madrid, put the new 96-page web offset press Goss Sunday 5000/96 into operation. Altair is part of Impresia Ibérica, one of the biggest suppliers of print products in Spain. With the new press, Altair is prepared to fulfil the highest demands in the market of commercial print work. In the field of inline finishing, Altair decided to integrate the fold-gluing system COMBIJET 9NET of Planatol into a GOSS PCF-3 folder. This makes Altair the second printer in the world, apart from Grafiche Mazzucchelli in Italy, that can produce A4 products with 96 pages on a one-web press at a speed of up to 15 m/sec.

In the every-day business of commercial and newspaper printing, many millions of brochures, newspapers and magazines are processed directly in the press by means of fold gluing. With this new press Altair can produce existing 48 page and new 96 page jobs more efficiently, improving their competitiveness.

The fold-gluing system COMBIJET 9NET provides a modern and innovative solution for rotary fold-gluing. Precisely reproducible and consistent parameters at web speeds of up to 20 m/sec., short set-up times and a high degree of automation are the top features of the COMBIJET 9NET system. The system configuration at Altair consists of 8 applicator heads (which can be extended to 80 applicator heads), a link to the press control desk and a remote diagnosis and maintenance system. Due to the modular construction of the COMBIJET systems, they can be adapted to the different sizes of large printing presses made by all renowned press manufacturers.

Apart from the applicator system, Planatol also supplies Altair with fold-glues that are carefully matched to the process of rotary fold-gluing and that are subject to particular manufacturing techniques. Among others an extremely fine sieving method is applied. During the production process it is important to reliably apply the adhesive through smallest nozzles with diameters from 0.5 mm at high web speeds in order to obtain an optimally glued bond. With Planatol fold-glues, all standard paper qualities which are run in web offset printing can be glued at any ink coverage and silicon coating with the same type of adhesive; it is not necessary to change the type of adhesive during the production process.

„At Impresia Ibérica, we already have six Planatol systems in operation and we have made very good experiences with them. Due to the excellent quality of the systems we decided to install the COMBIJET 9NET system in our new press as well. With a press of such a high capacity it is indispensable to integrate absolutely reliable components. With Planatol we can be sure to have a reliable and failsafe product”, emphasizes José María Camacho Fernández, president and managing director of Impresia Ibérica.

„The investment of Altair in the fold-gluing system Combijet 9NET confirms the high quality of our technology. We are proud of the joint project with Altair and of the fact that all 96-page web offset presses worldwide are currently equipped with our system“, says Frank Heuer, managing director of Planatol System GmbH based in Rohrdorf near Rosenheim, Germany.

96-page web offset presses are currently the biggest offset presses available on the market. With the new GOSS Sunday 5000/96, Altair is now running the press with the largest web width in Spain (2,860 mm).

The new press enables Altair to produce two 48-page products in the same time and with the same number of employees as were previously required for a single 48 page product. The costs per 48 page product can thus be reduced considerably.