The Linoprint machine cost the family-run wide-format specialist £50,000 and was bought as part of a wider £800,000 investment that also included an Agfa Leopard flatbed inkjet press, which was installed in August, and an Esko Kongsberg XP cutting table, to be installed just before Christmas. 

The 75ppm A4 Linoprint machine replaces two Xerox printers and also joins an Inca S20 and Inca Spyder. Although the company also still runs a Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 74-5, it expects, having removed the screen printing element of its operations completely, to be a purely digital house within the next six months.  

Joint owner Luke Appleton said: “We’re going to be running retail POS work, for the garden and cinema sectors for example, on this machine and the print lengths on those jobs are reducing. We do a lot of one- or two-colour work in runs of 150-200. Before we were putting that work on the Heidelberg to get the colour consistency and to get good spot colours, but the runs were too short really.”

Although the company did also look at Xerox and Canon machines, it was the Linoprint C751’s colour consistency that clinched the deal, said Appleton.

“We put it though some quite aggressive tests, ran a lot of sheets on it and that was the one that gave off the right feeling,” he said, adding: “The backing from Heidelberg was quite a big thing, with their machinery being market leading. So we piggy-backed on that. The whole process was seamless with them, right from the sales team, to the demonstrations through to installation.”