Hitting the Mark on Narrow Web Presses

How some label makers improve registration and productivity on Mark Andy presses with retrofit all-air web guides.

As with most printing processes, keeping the web on the right path is key to quality output. For high-speed, narrow web printers, web path alignment becomes even more critical with little margin for error. Not all press manufacturers, however, provide web guiding systems with the original equipment. Consequently, many printers add these components to their presses and quickly develop individual and unique learning curves as to what works well and what doesn’t.

Both ITW Labels and Valley Forge Tape & Label have gone through such trials in seeking optimum performance and productivity with their Mark Andy narrow web presses. ITW Labels is a leading producer of grocery labels, car seat labels, and other industrial labels at their Gardner, Kan. plant. Valley Forge, with headquarters in Exton, Pa., produces folded coupons, temporary ID cards, and other consumer-based label products. Both companies have come to a similar conclusion with their web guide experiences – all-air web guides have been the perfect fit for their Mark Andy presses.

Valley Forge has ten presses, nine of them Mark Andy. The presses range in age from more than 40 years to one built just last year – a Mark Andy 2200 press that prints and marries two webs together to form holographic foil labels. Vince Dooley, director of manufacturing at Valley Forge Tape & Label, has become intimately familiar with electronic web guides used throughout his plant.

According to Dooley, it recently took two hours to fix one of the guides. “I’ve got electronic guides everywhere and I always have issues – cables bending and electronic boards failing.” Dooley states, “I wanted to try one that didn’t have those parts.”

In late 2007, Dooley put that quest to the test with an all-air web guide using no electronic parts or wiring. It was totally different from anything Dooley had experienced.

The new MDG5 displacement web guide from Coast Controls was perfect for the limited space allowed with Valley Forge’s newest Mark Andy 13" press. “I was impressed,” Dooley says. “The Coast Controls web guide has been running flawlessly. We haven’t had any problems since we installed it.”

With a continual push toward optimum productivity, ITW Labels uses Mark Andy presses for at least part of their printing and converting needs. Of 11 presses, five are Mark Andy 4120 and 4150 narrow web presses.

Scott Dyche, maintenance technician at ITW Labels, experienced similar frustration with failed components on his electronic web guides. “A small component on an electronic web guide takes about three hours to replace,” he says. “And when you do that even two or three times in a couple months, it’s time to start looking for something better.”

The presses at ITW Labels typically run 15-inch wide webs. According to Dyche, each web may have up to seven individual lanes depending on label style. The web guides are located in cramped locations on some of the presses. These tight quarters pose multiple challenges to both the guides and maintenance team.

Scraped knuckles are par for the course when repairs are needed. In addition, it’s difficult to keep electronic wires clear of moving webs. As Dyche points out, “When you’ve got web guide wires running on the inside of the press, or down around where the web goes, it’s real easy to cut that wiring with the edge of the web.”

ITW Labels also investigated all-air guides about three years ago. Four of the Mark Andy presses were equipped with built-to-fit Coast Controls displacement web guides. Dyche immediately appreciated the ready access to the guide components. “These units are open enough that I can reach my hand in and guide everything where I need it. With the other units, you’d have to take it apart to move anything,” Dyche says.

Knowing his new web guides were “powered” by plant air, Dyche admitted to having a bit of a scare when the plant air dryer went down and water flooded into the low-pressure air lines. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the two-stage air filters that came standard with his all-air guides handled the water perfectly and kept the Mark Andy presses running at top productivity.

ITW Labels also employs a Martin butt splicer to maintain non-stop printing. The splice, however, often creates side-to-side offset in the web. Web guides on these lines need to be responsive enough to correct for the offset with a minimum of waste.

As Dyche points out, “When you’re running 300 to 500 feet a minute, if your web guide doesn’t respond quickly when a splice comes through, you can generate a lot of scrap. Let’s say it takes one second to make the correction. That equates to probably twenty to thirty feet of product that is out of alignment.”

Dyche happily discovered that the all-air guides were even more responsive than the previous electronic guides, resulting in little or no scrap. Valley Forge Tape & Label had a similar analysis. According to Dooley, “I think it’s a simpler operating web guide, and it’s accurate … so we have less waste.”

Dyche also liked the fact that the new guides are one hundred percent pneumatic and easier to manage. In the three years ITW has been using all-air web guides, Dyche says, “I have yet to turn a wrench on one.” He adds, “And for a web guide that fits the Mark Andy press at two-thirds the cost of the previous guiding systems, all-air was a real boon.”