Shaftless Tower Bound for Homeless Press

By: Jim Rosenberg Among the industry's last letterpress locations, The Record of Stockton, Calif., will add a new ColorTop 6000 four-color tower from TKS to a new press configured from TKS M72 units dating from the 1980s -- some used for years, most never used. Masthead International is rebuilding and will install the old units.

The offset press will replace letterpress equipment when a new production and packaging plant goes up adjacent to the headquarters of the 60,000-circulation daily owned by the Ottaway Newspapers subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co. Inc., where a multiyear press-expansion project yielded the units to be installed in Stockton.

Record Operations Director Gregg Baxter said he thinks the press line -- seven M72 units, some with halfdecks -- are from at least two Wall Street Journal print sites. When, about five years ago, Dow Jones undertook a massive page and color expansion project at its production plants nationwide, it, too, added color towers. But it also reconfigured existing press lines, balancing units on each side of a folder and creating presses that are uniform from plant to plant.

To preserve capacity while freeing up units that it would refurbish and relocate, the project relied on a TKS press the company bought years before but never installed. For the expansion, a Dow Jones executive said at the time, units of Press 110 would "prime the pump." Units that came out of one plant very likely would end up installed in another, as the units were refurbished and the presses reconfigured.

So not all of Press 110 found its way into a Wall Street Journal plant, and not all the plants' somewhat older units were reused.

Press 110 was one of several machines ordered by Dow Jones in the mid-1980s for a planned capacity expansion that was cut short (E&P, Oct. 31, 1998). Whatever equipment hadn't been installed went into storage. Later, some units were used and the rest sold. Inland Machinery Corp. sold Presses 110 and 111 to El Nacional in Caracas, Venezuela. But before they could be installed there, an economic slump in Venezuela had Inland looking for a third buyer.

Across the North Pacific, then to South America, and back north to storage in Florida -- for more than 10 years the never-uncrated presses went everywhere except into a newspaper pressroom. In 1997, 111 found a home in Southern California at Scripps' Ventura County Star, where it was commissioned in early 1998 (E&P, May 9, 1998). A few months later, Inland finally found a third buyer for 110: Once again Dow Jones needed the press for expansion, this time its ambitious three-year, $232 million project that greatly increased page and color capacity.

As it happened, the same expansion that relied on units from 110 to preserve production's capacity and the project's progress put Press 109 into the Journal plant in Palo Alto, Calif. "It was destiny, I think, for Press 110 to end up in Stockton," said Record General Manager David Johnson, who is managing the plant project. Record personnel can drive over to Palo Alto, he said, examine 109's installation, wiring and piping, "and see what our future's going to be."

Never converted to di-litho or offset, the Record's 1950s-vintage Goss Mark I letterpress is "still a true letterpress" said Johnson. So for offset litho printing, he added, "extensive training will be forthcoming for our pressmen." The training is expected to commence in late summer, after details are worked out with TKS and Dow Jones.

Still to be selected is a mailroom vendor, and the paper will shop for much of its other equipment at Nexpo this summer in Washington. "We are going to explore computer-to-plate," said Johnson.

The existing pressroom and mailroom are in the back of the Record's building, where inadequate space means that each night elevators carry the next run's supply of newsprint. Inserting capacity also is inadequate: a single 12-pocket Heidelberg 1472.

"The new facility's going to be a dream come true for a lot of people," said Johnson, who said there are no plans yet for how the production area's space will be used after printing and packaging relocate to the new plant.

"It's a brand-new building on a city block right next to us," said Baxter. "They are digging the foundations right now." He said the Record acquired the block next to its headquarters and the section of road between them. "The town deeded us that street," said Johnson, adding that "for the safety of employees, we didn't want to have a working street separating the two facilities." The street, he said, will serve only as a driveway to the parking lot and for plant access by the paper's vans and small trucks. Heavy trucks, such as those carrying newsprint, will use another driveway to the back of the new plant.

According to Baxter and Johnson, the press bay is expected to be completed and enclosed by October, with press components beginning to arrive soon after. The new tower is due in early December, said Baxter. Production on the new press is planned to start in the second quarter of 2005.

"We have a very aggressive schedule," said Johnson, noting that Ottaway bought the paper less than a year ago from the Omaha World-Herald Co., "and already the ground is broken and the building's going up. So this is very fast."

With respect to highway access, said Johnson, "we have a perfect location" in the southeast section of downtown. Since the project began, there was never any question of moving. Under its former owner, the paper already had begun buying up old buildings on the next block, which like other areas, was in need of "some revitalization," said Johnson. The city, he added, is in the midst of a redevelopment program, with other buildings coming down for new construction.