The Bieler Press is a manufacturing representative and distributor (since 1998) of the industry-standard Bunting Magnetic Cerface™ Flat Base for Bunting Magnetics Co.
Industry designed, this is the most exacting flatbase available for the professional letterpress printer. Housed in an aluminum shell, the powerful surface-mounted ceramic magnets hold steel-backed photopolymer plates or steel dies securely in register—without the need for interlay film or spray adhesives—and thus provide exacting impression—with no plate travel, stretching, distortion, buckling or bulging, loss of imaging, or adherence problems—throughout the most demanding of print runs.
Each base is ground to the client’s plate thickness requirements and its magnetism is guaranteed for life. These are precision ground, held to tolerance between .000" and .001", and are parallel across the measure. Thus, multiple bases can be locked together without concern for variance (for precision, Bunting does recommend combination bases rather than going to a larger size base).
Bunting flatbases are manufactured in a number of standard sizes configured for the various size chases of all letterpress production presses, including Heidelberg, Kluge, Chandler & Price, and Miehle. Shown here is a MB-811 (8-1/2 by 11-1/4 inch) Bunting Magnetic Cerface Flat Base (their largest standard size — and cheapest per square inch!) locked up in the bed of a Vandercook SP15—a 15-inch bed wide Vandercook will accommodate two bases at this size, a 20-inch bed wide Vandercook four bases at this size. Custom sizes are available up to 19 by 39 inches.
Bunting Magnetics was founded in 1959 and has manufactured its highly regarded magnetic bases since 1985. The Cerface model (introduced in 1994) is the most recent configuration of its flatbases.
Note: These flatbases are also available ground for use on galley proof presses that otherwise require an additional bedplate and other presses with non-standard type height requirements, such as foreign-made presses.
