Heidelberg 13x18 or 15x20 cylinder?

Hi all, We are looking at getting either one. They are about the same price. We currently have a 10x15 Kluge for scoring and die cutting but need a bigger chase size for future projects. Currently we do no letterpress printing but want to in the future. My question is do the bigger windmills register well. It has foiling on it and would love to be able to do that. A local printer has both as well as a 10x15 windmill and tells me the bigger windmills do not register as well and get the cylinder. The cylinder has the inkers but no foiling. Would I be happy with the big windmill or should I go with the cylinder and no foiling or embossing? I have ran a GTO so the cylinder should not have a steep learning curve, have never run a windmill. Thanks!

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Having operated both 12 x 18 platens and a 20 x 30 cykinder, I would definitely go for the cylinder,especially if they are about the same price.
A full size sheet on a platen can cause problems with delivery as the sheet swings, whereas the delivery on a cylinder is straight and flat.
Foiling maybe rewarding to do but can you make it profitable?

Have to agree with Bern…..Ron

Thanks for the replies. It what my gut was thinking. I was excited about getting foiling for ‘free’. The cylinder matches the size of our Speedmaster so it’s a better fit for our shop. I’ll keep dreaming of a windmill. We have a Kluge 10x15 now. Are there good reasons to keep a Kluge with a cylinder?

Thanks, Richard

Richard, foiling is cool, i put a unit on my windmill years ago, since the economy fell apart foiling has slowed way down. You can foil on your kluge, i use my kluge for blind embossing, i don’t have a hot plate and do it without heat. Dick G.

There are a lot of good reasons to keep a Kluge, or other autofeeding platen around. First and foremost is the ability to run really heavy stiff stock that a cylinder might have issues with. A platen (up to a point of course) can provide more impressional “punch” than a cylinder—without the issues of slurring that will happen on a cylinder.

An Kluge is also a much better starting ground for running foil/emboss, in terms of flexibility, over a Windmill and certainly over a cylinder.

Of course there’s also numbering, short run die-cutting and weird things like printing glue (maybe better reserved for a hand fed press) for whatever oddball projects come up.

In some ways, Kluges and C&P’s have advantages over the Windmill—especially for running oversize stock and doing work and turn work (which cannot be done on a Windmill).

A well rounded shop would have at least a medium cylinder press (Miehle Vertical or small KS line Heidelberg letterpress), a 12 x 18 Kluge (or C&P with Kluge feeder), a 10 x 15 open hand press and a 10 x 15 Windmill. Of all that, the Windmill is probably the least required, partly because of it’s limited 10 x 13 image area (but handy for running long platen runs).

One of these days, I’ll get a Kluge, I can think of work for it already!

I was driving my grand daughter to church this morning and passed by a large factory that housed a print shop that closed a few years ago, there was a for rent sign on thebuilding and fresh landscaping, in the middle of the lawn was a garden with some bushes and who ever owns the building stuck a 14x22 kluge in the middle of it. I’m not going to sleep tonight thinking about it, Mike this could be your chance for a kluge. Dick G.

Probably a bit far away. Gee though, a 14 x 22. Waste of a good press. Thanks for the thought though-gotta expand the shop first!

Mike, its not too far away, just a town or two from Plymouth, Ma.

Alas, as my screen name indicate-I’m in Montana, a bit of a haul : < )). Still, perhaps for yourself? Careful, or I might enlist you as an agent to further bury myself in equipment!

Montana, why that’s only half way across the country, can’t be too far.