Offset Printing

Mt. Royal Printing Fills Gap Between Full Size Offset and Digital with RMGT 5 Series Press

Monday 22. June 2020 - As part of a strategy to strengthen their hybrid print capabilities, Mt. Royal Printing Co. recently purchased an RMGT 5 Series 6-color press with coater and AQUV coating. Founded in 1946, Mount Royal Printing Co. is led by Gary Cayce, the third generation to take the helm of this privately-owned commercial printer. Based in Baltimore, MD this Printing Impressions Top 400 printer services the greater Washington, DC market.

Mt. Royal Printing has experienced a 27% growth in the last five years, with 85% of their revenue coming from offset printing, 15% from digital and wide-format.
“We have driven the offset side of our business in the 40-inch market for pretty much the history of the company,” said Gary Cayce, President of Mount Royal Printing. “At the current time we have two 40-inch presses including an 8-color UV press. Our intent with this investment was to fill the void between the 40-inch market and our digital market. This will help our client base tremendously. We have a lot of small work that doesn’t really fit a 40-inch competitively but requires higher quality than you can get on digital.”
A key element of the investment in the RMGT 5 Series press was the fact that it was outfitted with UV curing technology. Mt. Royal Printing has been running with UV curing for the past six years and has become well versed in the advantages of what UV curing brings to offset printing. “What drew us to the press was the fact that it was a full conventional UV interdeck press with five lamps,” states Tom Dieter, General Manager, Mt. Royal Printing. “This will enable us to produce a lot of specialty effects with the three interdecks(after 2nd, 4th, and 6th units) and AQ/UV coater.”
“Part of our plan with this is to be able to offer really cool, high-end printing that is much more economical to produce than putting it on a 40-inch press,” states Cayce. “If a job fits this format size, it’s going to be much easier for our salesforce to sell a six-color job with reticulating varnishes and special effects. If the same job were printed on a 40-inch press, it would put a lot of customers out of their budget. With this press we can do smaller, high-end stationary packages and projects with tricky effects at a much more affordable price point.”
Another factor in a more efficient print production workflow is that UV curing contributes to a faster turnaround of jobs. “We’ll run 300 books on an offset press because of the turnaround time,” declares Cayce. “It’s tremendously different. You would think that digital would be faster, but it’s not.” He cites reduced makeready times coupled with instant drying due to UV curing as factors that tip the print manufacturing scales in favor of offset printing. By having five UV lamps placed on the RMGT 5 Series press allows Mt. Royal Printing to dry trap, which makes the quality of the printing look dramatically sharper. It will allow them to do some special effects, such as putting down opaque whites and then printing on top of them in the same pass.
Another example of the smaller format offset press filling a gap between a 40-inch press and a digital press is seen with high quality booklets. “It would be a pain to break down a 40-inch eight-color perfector to run a cover,” continues Dieter, “but we had to run it there because it had to match the rest of the book. So now with the RMGT 5 Series press, we have an opportunity to produce covers more economically and still match the quality of the eight color UV press.”
In a hybrid print manufacturing plant, with both offset and digital presses, decisions have to be made regarding whether a job is produced offset or digital. Typically, these decisions are driven by quantity. “I mean, if it’s a book block job or a job with variable data, it’s going to go on digital,” states Dieter. “However, the majority of our digital work has been static, so we’re looking for the higher margin work that fits offset far better. You also have to look at the costs with digital versus offset. It’s not hard to figure out when you’re paying a monthly digital press payment, a service contract, and then there’s a click charge.”
“We share the enthusiasm of Mt. Royal Printing after investing in the RMGT series 5 press with UV curing technology, and look forward to continuing to work with Mt. Royal Printing” states Jim Lundy, G.E. Richards, the northeast importer/distributor for RMGT in the United States. “With the capabilities to run on plastic and other substrates on a smaller sheet it opens up a big window for Mt. Royal to expand their business even further.”