Memorandum
May 26, 1998
From
Seattle Times Pressroom
To: Larry Berg
Press
Managers
Press
PIC’s
From: Pat Manyon. Jerry Hines, Gebre Nawid
Subject:1998 Western Maintenance Conference
The conference was a valuable educational
experience. Attendance was up 10% to 120, and many new ideas were exchanged in
spite of the fact that there had been some concern in 1997 about repletion.
Following are some of the Colorliner discussed. John & Eric’s report on
mechanical items is on the Times intranet at:
http://seawed.seatimes.com/ops/reliability/shared/westmaint/index.html
Their reports overlap a bit with this one.
Paster patterns: Matt Armstrong from Santa Barbara talked about their
success with straight line paster patterns, and says this has helped improve
their paster percentage from 98.1 to 99.5%. He admits there were training
issues and resistance to change. You have to do some soft wear changes in the
R.T.P. and the black tape is placed 22" from the pattern. (6" is the
normal position). Los Angeles has kept a traditional pattern and now claims
99.7%. It took two years to get there.
CIC cleaning: Try using fountain solution or vinegar, not solvents.
Roller lube: Crisco is reported to work well as an alternate,
even with runs of 250k. (We've had the same recommendation from our Bingham
roller rep).
Trolleys, nipping rollers and materials: There were a lot of theories being tested, but the
consensus seemed to be that there are a lot of training and consistency issues
here. (Lots of risk for small gains, most shops have removed after testing…)
The most success to get rid of Trolley and nip marks was to reduce the image on
the page 96.5 to 96%. Portland reported experimenting with gain rates in the
lower former area, but Goss folder expert says these are "written in
stone" and shouldn’t ever be changed.
Automatic register and compensation (CCR)
systems: Becoming popular but
very expensive to add on. These are very fast and give consistent quality. Contra
Costa is looking at compensator control as having the most valuable benefits
due to munch faster startups.
Lubricant updates:Texaco 68 has been working well, Phoenix is doing
more research.
Press wipe up: The trend seems to be to wipe up less often. Perhaps
every other day.
Blanket wash systems: Three systems were discussed, the Machine Design Dry
system was easily the most popular. We looked at this system on a unit at the
San Jose Mercury News.
Hydraulic cylinders: LA has found a better alternative at 50% of the Goss
price. Putting the press hydraulic system on a timer (shuts down in 15 minutes
if no activity) was recommended.
Slitter blades: Nitride coatings are being tested with some success.
Knife blades: Great improvements reported with the new one piece
blades, no negative comments. These blades can be sharpened two or three times.
This also will let us use 90-92 durometer rubbers for further improvement (we
now use 95). Goss admitted to vendor problems with the old four piece blades,
Eric is working on refunds.
Blanket cylinder rust: San Jose recommended "Iron-clad" by Zepp in
place of Rust-veto on the blankets. This stays tacky and helps keep blankets in
place.
Folder/former coatings: Phoenix (Mesa) has good delivery improvements using
"Slick-coat" (a teflon chemical coating) on fly’s. It works well when
running a large tab.
Press blankets: LA is still mixing feed rates (using Dayco 8089 and
8091), as per the Goss suggestion from the 1996 conference. Others have tried
this and gone back quickly to a uniform product everywhere. Most shops now are
setting impressions after one or two shifts on new blankets (approximately 500k
impressions?). LA is not having any problems with day blankets, they are using
H & S converters.
Web Severs: Concord mounted the solenoid externally and added an
air valve to disable these during maintenance. Also a test switch…
Airless spraybars: Very popular conversion, no negative results reported
(keep the water return line though). Inexpensive, and eliminates the expensive
Goss mixing block assembly. LA has also changed nozzles for a finer mist (Spray
Systems Inc., "orange nozzle").
Ink and water parameters: They should be calibrated every six months.
Running half rolls: Some papers avoid halfs in the middle. Things to
check are to avoid bad wrinkles when making pasters,
o Make sure brushes are in good condition
o Brush arm is parallel
o Bumpers are in good condition
Dampening roller material: There are mixed results here, many are using local
vendors.
Recycled ink filters: Denver reports no problem with these, but they polish
the ink to 600 with the same system we use.
Ink formulation: Adding 10% mineral oil works better with soy inks,
less drying problems.
o No cost increase
o Reduces wear in page packs
Outside ink forms: Rocky Mountain News removed these due to B & D
level wraps. LA and Phoenix are installing cookie rollers like on
old headliners.
Folder detectors: Sacramento added a panel to switch each detector on
or off and view status.
Bearer wear: Better Delrin assemblies are available, large remote
oil cups were also suggested to reduce wear.
Ink rail bleeding: Possible software update to shut off all page packs
when the job is ended.
Hydraulic oil leaks: Goss has developed steel lines to replace existing
ones to help reduce hydraulic leaks.
Goss sales
pitches for press updates:
·
Shock absorber
available for ink rails to A & B levels only, installed on op side. The
cost is $168.00 a piece.
·
Insert for roller bolts
(like press 4). These haven’t been a problem on press 1-3
·
Air bag folder. No
second folding roller bounce, more consistent pressure, Helps to reduce folding
roller marks.
·
Running band adjustment
retrofit (like press 4)…this is very expensive and the press must be down
for a minimum of two weeks to install.
·
Tubular RTF – New
design with no center bearing (maybe for the next cutdown). Cost is $15,600
each.
Web page information: Roger Williams reported the WM Conference pages will
be updated and kept posted at least through the next year. Vision for the
future includes areas like:
·
Bulletin board for
questions and answers and exchange of ideas.
·
Technical information
area
·
Links for vendors and
other resources
·
Classified ads for
equipment
Next year 1999 a possible conference site is
Los Angeles. Attending this conference was a great learning experience for all
three of us. It would really be helpful to have more of our maintenance people
attend. We will look forward to the conference being held in Seattle where we
may be able to schedule more maintenance people to attend.
cc: Dana
Reed
Eric
Rosenbrock
John
Street