Print Solutions
John Brailsford Printers has added a Morgana Laminator Pro 450 in order to speed up and automate its laminating capability.
The Rotherham and Barnsley shop fronted business has always had laminating in-house, but had generally been catering for smaller runs. Commenting on the arrival of the new machine, John Brailsford, company owner, said: “’As the business has expanded the run lengths for laminating have increased. We also saw the need, with typical runs of 1000/2000 copies, for more automation. Our short run solutions required hand feeding, so taking a person out of the process actually made the new machine a very cost effective solution from day one.
‘We looked at a range of machines, and sampled some of them with in-house trials. What became immediately apparent to us was that a number of products were not sufficiently robust to give us a reasonable life expectancy. The quality of the feeder was also an issue with some machines.’
Although a user of a number of Morgana products, John hadn’t initially considered Morgana for laminating, ‘Even though we have had purchased a number of products from the company, and still run Morgana numbering and creasing equipment, I wasn’t aware of the company providing quality laminating solutions. Having discussed the issue of laminating with our Morgana representative, she was able to offer us an in-house trial of the latest Laminator 450 product.
‘We had the machine delivered and after a couple of days training we were producing perfect results. We ran the machine for six weeks before Morgana came back to ask the question. Safe to say, the machine didn’t come out again!’
Designed for easy operation, the Laminator Pro 450 is a high pile automatic feed laminator. It features an integrated compressor and pneumatic system for high quality print lamination up to 450 mm working width. This revolutionary new compact machine combines speed and ease of operation with quality.
This deep pile, automatic suction feed system can achieve speeds of up to 1875 SRA3 sheets per hour. A micro-perforation and scissor roller cutting system provides for perforation and separation of sheets.
The Laminator Pro 450 is ideal for the on-demand printer. It is both easy to set up and very versatile, being capable of foiling and spot gloss as well as straightforward laminating.
John added, ‘The foiling provided us with excellent results from day one – much better than other systems that we have tried in the past, as it is better suited to a wider range of stock, and is overall a more predictable process.
‘The foiling process is only suitable for working with digitally printed work, as the foil adheres to the toner. Whilst it is a £1500 add on, being able to offer foiling to customers is most definitely an added value capability.’
The team at Brailsford’s also discovered that whilst the product is promoted as an SRA3 solution, they have been able to run SRA2 sheets through the machine and achieved very acceptable results. ‘It would only be efficient for very short runs, but that is all we would ever need,’ added John.
