Analysis

As most women know, there's nothing like a well-chosen accessory or two to bring an otherwise perfectly presentable but possibly nondescript outfit to life.

So, if it’s differentiation you’re after – and is there a print buyer who isn’t – think of your print job as a dress, and the addition of foil blocking, embossing, UV varnish or any of an expanding palette of special effects as the way to really get it noticed.

And if that sounds expensive, then think again. Time was when applying the finishing touch was a slow-moving secondary operation that held up delivery and ramped up cost. That may be acceptable for a corporate brochure or the anniversary issue of a magazine, but for the greater proportion of less durable print jobs, it just puts extra pressure on an already constrained budget.

While newer technology has made the modular press with integrated inline coating commonplace, it hasn’t altogether resolved the various deterrents to achieving an affordable level of added value to both the printer and the customer. Yes, it’s technically possible to build an offset press of up to 18 units, of which several could be coaters – the vast majority single-headed – but it would cost around £2.5m and fill at least 20 metres of valuable floor space. Par for the course is one effect per pass, and as printers quote jobs on press time, then the cost jumps with each finish you want to use.

Given the prevailing mindset among many commercial printers that volume through the press at optimum speed is the basis for a productive and profitable business model – not necessarily correct, but so it goes – there isn’t always the incentive to focus on time-consuming finishing touches. Net result: the less well-informed print buyer can lose out by dint of not knowing what might be possible.

Offline advantage

One solution that some Heidelberg customers are offering is a return to secondary finishing by unbolting the coating unit from a Speedmaster CD 102 and applying anything from UV gloss varnish to scratch’n’sniff as an offline operation, with up to three effects achieved at 15,000sph in a single pass.

Before now, trade finishers were more usually equipped with Steinemann rotary coaters capable of producing one effect at a time and running at a third of the speed. Two years ago, BestCover UV installed twin-headed Heidelberg coaters at its Leeds and London sites. The response from customers has been outstanding, says managing director Darren Crake.

In a busy week, we can get through 1.8m sheets on a single machine, and at a far higher quality than with an inline system where it has to run wet on wet. In any event, most printers wouldn’t contemplate spending what we have on these machines; they’d sooner go out and buy a reconditioned five-colour press with a coating unit rather than a dedicated offline system, because it doesn’t warrant that volume of work.

There isn’t a month goes by when we’re not doing trials on new applications to replicate at high speed what would otherwise be done rotary screen or roller-coat. We’ve now mastered latex scratch-off, which takes us in at the lower-end of lottery and gaming cards.

While other press manufacturers look on with varying degrees of interest – Manroland more than most – Heidelberg has now installed its third system into the UK at Celloglas’s Leicester site, where sales and marketing director Steve Middleton has his sights set on supporting his customers’ brand owner and magazine publishing clients.

Middleton says: Most of the time, printers do not sell on our products naturally. The mindset is that it’s something that’s got to go out to be done; we don’t control it, so it’s cost addition. It’s very rare for a print buyer to come into direct contact with a company like ours, and that’s what we’re hoping to change. In conjunction with our printer customers we’re going directly to the publishers in order to show them the sort of finishing touches that are possible – and are effectively offering value-added as standard.

What that equates to could be a typical run of 30,000 sheets, including two, or often three, effects drawn from any combination of matt or gloss UV, pearlescent, embossing or die-cutting, processed as a single pass within the duration of half a shift, Once, that would have taken at least 60 working hours going with conventional techniques.

So if your printer doesn’t want or isn’t able to give you something special – just tell him you know a man, or indeed two of them, who can.

Haymarket Publishing special cover

Technique Spot UV gloss; matt UV; textured gloss; embossing

Run-length 14,500

Substrate Satimat Green 150gsm

If you received last month’s issue of Printing World, then you’ll have already seen this multiple-effect finishing application job on our cricket-themed front cover. The total run of 14,500 sheets (four-up) went through the coater twice: initially to achieve the UV gloss and matt effects on the stumps and bails, and then to apply the textured gloss and embossing. Running at 15,000sph and including makeready, the total job was through the coater within less than four hours.

Persil Gel Tablets door-drop

Technique Spot UV gloss; die-cutting; creasing and perforating

Run-length 600,000

Substrate 170gsm silk stock

With all three finishes achieved on a single pass, this door-drop promotional print item in support of Persil Gel Tablets was produced on a double-headed Heidelberg coater at a rate of 14,500sph. The total job was completed in under four days.

Barclays Bank Current Account Plus folder

Technique Die-cutting; trimmed and stripped; folder-glued

Run-length 115,000

Substrate 350gsm silk stock

This promotional folder for Barclays Bank was cut and creased within 10 hours. It took a further 50 hours to undertake the folder-gluing on standard equipment (running at 6,000 units per hour), but the main saving for the client was the fast turnaround of the die-cutting process aligned to the tight precision register. Another important benefit of the reduced completion time was a two-thirds positive improvement on energy consumption: a plus to the client, the finisher and the environment.

Sure to Win scratch cards

Technique Scratch- off

Run-length 25,000

Substrate 170gsm gloss

This job was produced within significantly reduced timescales against conventional screen printing. The trial was achieved in a single pass by putting down a special release varnish followed by a scratch-off silver in under five hours including trimming and boxing the end product. Whereas the industry standard latex for silk screen is solvent-based, the water-based alternative product used here contained no volatile organic compounds.