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Ian Duddle, pressroom manager at APS Group, has tried a wide range of blankets at the firm’s Cheshire site, but the Vulcan Folio comes out on top

What does it do?
The Vulcan Folio, made by Trelleborg Printing Blankets in Italy, is a compressible blanket suitable for a wide range of sheetfed applications and formats.

Why did you choose this particular blanket?
We have 31 B1 units between our various MAN Roland presses and the Vulcan Folio is used on them all, partly because it is what our minders prefer to use. Its consistency allows them to eliminate the blanket as a variable on the press.

Did you look at similar products?
Over the years, we’ve tried blankets from every major supplier, including a period when we had blankets bundled with other pressroom supplies. The latter was a good example of something looking good on paper but not providing benefits in real life, in this case access to the expert technical support every printer needs from time to time. We returned to the Vulcan Folio and haven’t looked back.

What features do you particularly like?
The blanket gives us everything we would hope for: high resistance to smashes, clean and accurate reproduction, good release and dot gain properties and no staining. We achieve excellent results with the same blankets on the press, whether printing 80gsm uncoated paper, 600 micron board, stochastic or 200lpi.

Is there anything you wish it had that is doesn’t?
No. We operate a very quality-conscious plant, including ISO colour management systems to ensure consistent reproduction, while all our presses run alcohol-free. The Vulcan Folio meets all of these exacting requirements.

How does it react to speed?
We often run our 10-colour perfectors at 13,000sph and our straight models at 15,000sph. Speed does not affect the blanket’s properties.

How reliable is it?
This is one of the great advantages of the Vulcan Folio. It provides an extremely good resistance to smashes – the main reason a blanket has to be replaced on a press. This means we benefit from longer periods of productivity.

What’s the quality like?
The quality of reproduction is first class, while the blanket’s stability is the best we’ve come across. Once a new blanket has been fitted, our minders never have to go back and alter the tension, which can be a problem with many other brands. Again, this increases throughput on the press.

How much time or money has it saved?
The factory turns out an average of 4.5m printed sheets a month, so there is a significant pressure to keep the presses running. Like all printers, we operate to tight deadlines and margins so press downtime, for whatever reason, is the last thing we want. It’s impossible to work out figures on savings, but I’ve no doubt in my mind that it is significant, while the ability to meet client deadlines is truly incalculable.

Would you say it offers value for money?
Certainly. There are cheaper and more expensive versions on the market, but the Vulcan Folio provides us with everything we need from a blanket.

What about the pre- and after-sales service?
Trelleborg has forged long-standing relationships with leading distributors. In the UK this is MAN Roland Consumables, which provides us with a first-class service.

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CONCLUSION
User’s verdict
Speed 5/5
Quality 5/5
Reliability 5/5
Value for money 5/5

Supplier’s response
“I think most sheetfed printers would identify with the points made by Ian Duddle,” says Emanuele Taccon, commercial director at Trelleborg Printing Blankets. “Client expectations and increasing competition from countries such as China and India will make the need for higher productivity and greater cost efficiency of presses in the UK all the more important during 2008.”

 

Price
On application

Contact
Trelleborg Printing Blankets (Italy) 0039 0371 406351