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Vanguard Makes The News
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The towers were rigged
in sideways, placed on rails and traversed down the
length of the hall |
Heavy rigging specialist, Vanguard, recently completed the
installation of nine Man Roland Uniset towers at Media24’s
City Deep operation. This is one of the projects that
Vanguard has completed for the group.
Three of the towers were installed and commissioned in
January, allowing immediate efficient operation. The balance
of the order, a further six towers, arrived in the country
in May.
According to Phillip Tellier, Vanguard Director, the towers
were shipped from Germany to Durban Harbour in stages and
were cleared through customs, collected and loaded onto
trucks by Vanguard.
“We transported the presses to our premises in Cleveland,
Johannesburg before taking them to City Deep where a
printing hall had been designed and built especially for
these towers. Each tower consists of two half decks,
walkways, rollers, and folders, weighs approximately 22t and
produces 75 000 newspapers per hour.”
The challenge for Vanguard came when rigging the printing
presses into the hall. The only available access was on the
side of the hall. The towers had to be craned onto a
pre-assembled platform on the first floor. They were then
rigged in sideways, placed on rails and traversed down the
length of the hall. Hydraulic gantries then lifted them into
final position on press slabs. The presses could not be
repositioned while in transit so they had to be correctly
oriented before being placed on the rails.
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A
22t tower lowered into position |
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Hans Nel, technical manager, Media24, notes that due to the
added weight of the gantries and rail system on the
cantilever slabs, consultants were called in to erect
scaffolding and propping on the ground floor of the hall in
order to support the slabs.
“The six new towers were set on the press slabs and
commissioned. The walkways, rails and decks were then
constructed and the electrical installation completed.
“The six towers will be responsible for printing Beeld and
Daily Sun newspapers, amongst other jobs. The existing
presses are still in operation and will continue printing
after the Uniset machines are up and running,” notes Nel.
The Uniset machines are more flexible, produce better
quality newspapers, operate faster, offer better pagination,
that is, the number of pages running through the machine is
greater and offers more formats than the existing machines.
Vanguard has also completed printing press installations for
Paarl Web, Die Burger, and The Natal Witness.
Vanguard’s hydraulic gantries lifted the towers into final
position on the press slabs
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