The Heidelberg machine, due to be installed at the Wembley, London-based printer’s 465sqm premises, is intended to replace a Konica Minolta Bizhub Pro C65hc in the long run, although this will be kept running until later in the year.
The Linoprint CV machine, which is an OEM version of Ricoh's Pro C9100, was launched earlier this year.
The device offers the option of a fifth colour for white or clear varnish applications. It can handle stocks of 52gsm to 360gsm and, depending on feeder selection, 330x488mm standard sheets or 330x700mm banner formats. It has options to produce either 80 or 90 A4ppm.
“We identified quite early on that the extra features of the Linoprint CV are potentially going to put us in a market that we want to be in,” said managing director Jonathan Luck.
“We are impressed with the white and clear toner options which will allow us to add value to jobs to enable us to increase our margins. The overall quality is exceptional and gives a litho-like feel to work.
“Another big attraction is the ability to print on longer 700mm sheets which opens up the opportunity for producing presentation folders, 6pp A4 or landscape A4 brochures.
“We want to be able to keep our margins high by adding value to the print that we’re doing by offering something that isn’t that easy to come across elsewhere.”
The business also operates a Heidelberg GTO, a Heidelberg Printmaster and a Mimaki JV33 wide-format printer and offers in-house finishing services including SRA3 foiling and embossing, die-cutting, laminating, collating and wiro-binding.
The GTO is primarily used for high-volume NCR work that the business said still can’t be cost-effectively produced digitally.
“The only thing we send out is spot UV varnishing but with the Linoprint CV we’ll hopefully be able to pull a lot of that back in-house as we’ll be able to do a take that on with the clear toner,” said Luck.
Abacus Print has nine staff and a turnover of around £750,000. It handles a high volume of trade work for printers and design agencies.
