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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Heavy lifting needed

Sixty-ton press requires addition at printing business

Workers with Hite Crane and Rigging prepare to lift a color press off a flatbed trailer and lower it into a new production area at National Color Graphics,  25 W. Boone Ave., in Spokane on Thursday.  (Christopher Anderson)

It took a five-story crane and about a dozen workers Thursday to install National Color Graphics’ newest press at its north Spokane office.

The printing company spent $50,000 to move and install a used 60-ton, six-color press into a new section of its building at 25 W. Boone Ave. Company owner Harlan Knobel said he needed a 16-by-28-foot addition to fit the 58-foot-long press inside.

Knobel paid $350,000 for the six-color Komori-made press, buying it from a Portland firm that paid $2.4 million when it was new. That company went out of business last year.

Moving and installing it, plus the building addition, cost another $150,000, Knobel said. He also paid $13,500 to install a new Avista power pole for the press.

Rocky Linebarger, owner of Rocky Line International, of Spokane, negotiated the purchase of the press for National Color Graphics and coordinated installation.

It handles sheets of paper 40 inches wide by 28 inches long, making it as big as any sheet-fed press in the area, Knobel said. It can print 13,000 sheets an hour.

Five trucks were used to haul the equipment from Portland, Linebarger said. The process required installing the feeder unit first, then six cylinder units in sequence, a finish unit that applies a protective coating to sheets, and the operator consoles that run the equipment.

Hite Crane and Rigging, of Spokane, provided the 50-ton rigging that lifted the units over 10-foot walls into the building.

“I’ve done a lot of moves of presses, but I’ve never seen one lifted through the roof before,” Linebarger said.