Church Eliminates Marks on Digital Prints

ANAHEIM, CA—The transition to digital printing is creeping into every corner of the in-plant market. Even the small in-plant at Grace Community Church, in Arleta, CA, has seen the change.

“More and more of the press work has gone to digital over the last two years,” remarks Charles Yamshak, who runs the church’s print shop, with one part-time assistant. Though the in-plant still uses its two-color offset press, its Ricoh Pro C900 and Ricoh 1106 have put out a quarter of a million more impressions this year than last year, he says.

With that digital growth, though, came an increase in problems on the finishing end. “I needed to upgrade,” he says.

So recently, the Los Angeles-area in-plant replaced that old 19˝ Rollem with a new air-fed 24˝ Rollem ETR Champion. It boasts a more sophisticated guiding system and a deep pile feeder that handles stacks up to 30˝ deep.

“This way, one person can operate the machine and just let it run,” Yamshak says.

The new Rollem ETR Champion runs stocks ranging from 16-lb. onion skin to 40-pt. board, and cross-grained papers are handled flawlessly. So far it has been used to produce items like camp booklets, cards and letters with perforated, tear-off cards.

Yamshak is particularly proud of one modification he made. He rolled the right-angle section of the shop’s MBO folder to the delivery end of the ETR to form an inline operation that allows him to perf or score through the ETR and deliver into the folder, producing a perforated, scored and folded piece in one operation. Because that section of the folder is powered independently through a separate converter box, the main section of the folder can still fold other jobs.

Getting funded for the new device was not hard, Yamshak says, once he showed the church how a new machine would eliminate the marking and improve the quality.

“They could see the benefits of upgrading,” he says. “This new equipment…has added a new dimension to the variety of digital jobs we do.”

For more information on Rollem International, visit www.rollemusa.com.

Source: Rollem.