Ryobi 3302 or Heidelberg GTO

[Tom_print]

I am looking into starting up a small print business, we would be aiming at general business stationary, ranging from Business cards / Letter heads / flyers / envelopes / NCR books.. etc

Any full colour work would simply be sent out and printed via a trade printer as we don't have the funds for that type of machinery..

I have experience with Ryobi / Itek small offset machines, and know their limitations + their maintance side of things, but I honestly know nothing about the heidelberg GTO
Our budget bassicaly allows us to purchase, second hand, either:
2 colour Ryobi 3302 + 1 colour Itek for number and perf
or
1 colour heidelberg GTO , possibly with number/perf

The GTO would be a 1980-1988 range so certainly getting on , and I'm not sure if there is any very expensive problems or items that generaly would need to be replaced on a machine of that age,
I have noticed a range of different dampening available from stand bareback / varn compac /alcolor. Which tyoe of dampning should I be aiming for ?

Does the GTO have good regestration for printing multipul colours ?
Can it print a decent solid ?


Any advice would be greatly appreciated, be it on these machines or any other machines that may be worth a look.
Regards. Tom..

 

[givbob]

The GTO can certainly print solids and register well. My question is how do you expect to compete in today's print environment with a single color press? If what you posted is indicative of what you want to print, the Ryobi 3302 makes more sense in my opinion.

 

[rbailleu]

have you consided a 3304 for handling short run 4 color. you will never make it farming out work unless you are the best salesman in the world. or if you have a customer or 2 locked in from the start. I have never run a ryobi. but I have run a gto it will print and register. you can spend thousands fixing it if the person who ran it let the water drip on the swing gripper/head stops and/or transfer gripper. run a demo on it. run 80# enamel text 100 to 200 sheets run the same sheets through 4 times do the same on the ryobi see which registers better. all things being equal the gto will register better over the long run. I would consider doing numbering and perfing off line. the setup on press will slow you down.

 

[Tom_print]

The figures I have worked out, I can still make money sending CMYK work to trade printers,,
example : I can get short run say 1000 cards done out side for $50 - $60 then I still have room to put my bit on top. Which is basically all I want.

My main focuss will be PMS colour jobs
What I print in house will be all PMS colours, and althouth I'm leaning towards the ryobi simply because its a 2 colour ,, from experience I know its registration capabilities are not the greatest, and also print quality is not the highest.

If a 1 colour GTO was capable of doing tight rego work, plus a good quality print I could use that to build up the business and then look to upgrade down the track
I understand that idealy you realy need at least a 4 colour machine, but you have to start somwhere..
Over the next few months I will be having a closer look at the GTO's and testing print quality...

Tom.

 

[bgardner]

I might be a little late in this conversation, but just some feedback from what I read already.

First and biggest question - what kind of plates are you going to make for this press??
That you should be your first thing you look at

I work in Prepress so I havent actually run any presses, but know what they can handle and cant handle, as well as seen the work that has come off them - I have no experience with the GTO - But for the Ryobi side of this topic, my last employer I was there for about 5 years and we had a Ryobi 3302 - That we didnt use to run envelopes but since we were a small print shop (less then 5 employees) this press was used as our high quality work, but only for PMS jobs. We could run most stuff, But we got of lines through big solids that flooded say an 8.5 x 11 Sheet. We got new rollers in one of the heads and that seemed to help, but the press isnt really built to run big solids. We could usually run a Business Card 8up with a solid flood on the back in a pantone color, since the gutters were big enough in between each card, the lines were never really there. You run into the problem when you have a bigger consistent solid. Where I work now, Luckily we have both a Ryobi 3302 and 3304 - The 3302 is almost used just for envelopes (with an envelope feeder hooked up to it) - The 3304 we can either do a 4spot color job (which we do often) or actually ink it up for CMYK and print it all in one pass. It only run like a 11.5 x 17.5 sheet ( i forget the exact size) We run the small Full color postcards on it as short runs (some clients dont like digital) and it works great - We also can run 4color Process Envelopes on it, not a lot of places do that in one pass in our area - all our large solid work and heavy stock go on one of our 2 - 28" Komori (4color and 5 color) - Id jump to the 3304 if it works with your space and budget -

 

[keldrewett]

GTO & metal plates= no problems.

 

[Leo Caproni]

GTO or Ryobi 3302

GTO or Ryobi 3302

In terms of speed of makeready the Ryobi should be equipped with an aftermarket ink fountain from Kompac called I believe a Kwik Kolor that has levers to set in key position rather than knobs. The dampener should be something like a Accel Crestline or a Varn Kompac (I like the Crestline) to give you consistent dampening control. Both machines have a push side guide system but the major feeding point is that the GTO is a landscape format and the Ryobi is a portrait format which means that on maximum size sheets the GTO will register better and should not experience any tail whip at top speeds. The down side to the GTO is that it is a one color machine and there is rarely any one color work done these days while the Ryobi is a two color and has a double diameter impression cylinder where you grip the sheet once for two colors and should avoid any register issues between colors. The delivery on a GTO has two gripper bars and very little space for a good IR dryer and sprayer while the Ryobi has three gripper bars and a little more room to add those accessories which are necessary if you are doing multiple pass work. All in all both machines are good at what they do but you need to decide if a one color machine is the right way to go in a multicolor printing world.

 

[dipressforum]

Had both of them

Had both of them

We have a 3302 and had a GTO 4Color

Love the 3302 (although it is like 20 years old) but with right kind of pressman and maintainence it prints very well 1, 2 and 3 color jobs.

Got the GTO (1989) for 4 color work - got it out of my shop in less than 10 months. Replaced with Presstek DI.

Keep the ryobi 3302 - much easier to print, and setup.

Also buy a xerox 242 copier to handle all the short runs 4 color work in house.

That is all you will need to start up.

Best of luck
Shawn

DIPressforums.com
Printpapa.com

 

[realaqu]

I recommend heidelberg's QM46-2 . solid machine, easy operate, outstanding performance on spot colors.