6metre machine has own room to foil, UV varnish and emboss greetings ranges
Spending a cool quarter of a million pounds isn’t the best way to endear yourself to the accounts department, and Abbotprint’s Brian Frost had the trickier task as wife Lisa looks after the books!
But the effects the giant AccurioShine 3600 iFoil machine – the only one in the UK in a specialist greeting card printer – can produce have already won Lisa round in the few weeks since it was christened in its own specially-built room at the company’s Rye base.
And greeting card publishers such as Rosanna Rossi have taken to it too, with designer Anna Nelson’s new Aria range being the first off the press in all its foiled glory.
“It cost £250,000, and we had to build a proper room for it as it’s six metres long – it’s the largest amount of money I have ever spent, other than on our home,” Brian explained about the new state-of-the-art machine.
“Lisa looks after the accounts side of the business and was initially against it as it was a hefty investment but I think we’ve won her round. One of the beauties is that you have no need to make dies for the foiling, so you can use it to print 200 cards or 20,000.”
The machine allows Abbotprint to foil, spot UV varnish and give a foiled embossed finish without the need for any dies or expensive make-ready processes so can be offered to a wider range of publishers.
Rosanna Rossi’s Anna Nelson said: “As soon as we heard about the new machine, we were eager to create a collection that highlighted this technology. It’s allowing us to be a lot more flexible with our print process and with no foil dies needed. The result is really eye-catching and there is so much scope for possibilities.”
Brian added: “While it’s really good for small runs it’s also pretty quick and can produce up to around 6,000 cards per hour so, if a range takes off, we can continue to produce the cards in this way unlike standard digital foil which is not suitable for large runs.
“This week we’ve just finished a 96,000-card order for a French client using gold and holographic foil and the effect is really good.
“We ended up having to convert a storage unit to fit the machine in and we have installed our two digital presses in with it so it’s nice and self-contained – Troy Nelson of Rosanna Rossi came down for a few days and helped us fit out the room and do the painting so it was great they were the first publisher to use it.”
