BHS Printing Machinery

Mid-web presses buy printers a ticket into a wider arena of end-use markets, while enhancing existing capabilities. by Jessica Millward, Associate Editor THOUGH NOT THE ingenue of the press world it was a few years ago, the mid-web press still attracts its fair share of attention as a "new kid" of printing technology. Combining many of the best features of both narrow- and wide-web technology, the move to mid-web has expanded the product portfolios of several package printers. Board beginnings In the case of flexographic wide-web converter Plastic Packaging, Inc. (PPI), headquartered in Hickory, NC, the company's desire to enter the lightweight

Despite the many benefits of UV flexo technology, industry insiders are hesitant to treat it as the package printing cure-all. by Jessica Millward, Associate Editor THE BIG BUZZ surrounding UV flexo printing has abated slightly over the last year or two. The process' benefits —improved print resolution, less makeready time and waste, better adhesion to film substrates—have been well publicized. But with developments in water-based flexo, suppliers and converters alike have begun to wonder exactly what share of the package print pie UV flexo merits. So what to make of UV flexo's mantra of rivaling offset? From its first appearance on the industry scene,

Narrow-web letterpress, screen, and gravure pressmakers and printers show off their specialties and gauge the competition. by Susan Friedman Letterpress: quality still rules Letterpress hasn't lost its high-end lustre, but its marketshare may be vulnerable to claims of improved quality at less cost by other processes—particularly flexo. "For years we've been rotary letterpress, and flexo has been 10 paces behind," says George Noah, V.P. at Lewis Label Products. "Now flexo is one pace behind, and nine out of 10 buyers can't tell the difference." Noah estimates Lewis Label now prints 50 percent of its work with rotary letterpress—a level that was formerly as high