The new CardFolder unit has been designed to economically speed up post-production on digital prints, without sacrificing quality on thicker 200-350gsm stocks.

Owner, Graham Harris, told Printweek that he was excited about the new machine’s potential.

“It’s been an idea I’ve had for many years to get this up and running, so I feel it’s one of the biggest breakthroughs for our company in many years,” he said.

When run inline with a creaser, the CardFolder can crease, perforate, and fold sheets up to SRA3 at a top speed of up 12,000 copies per hour.

Harris, who founded CreaseStream alongside its sister company Tech-ni-Fold, said the design would allow printers to fold up to nine times faster than with impact-knife based machines because of the creaser’s roller-based design.

He added that it is this design that prevents the machine from crushing or cracking digitally printed jobs.

“The product comes out flat and with no digital [print] cracking at all.

“It’s the speed, the simplicity, the affordability, but also a surprisingly simple set-up.”

The folder uses a colour coded adjustment system to allow the operator to change formats quickly.

Harris said that he would rather avoid software-based adjustments for high-volume machines like the CardFolder.

“We prefer to have that manual input,” he said, “so it’s got more reliability and it won’t break down.

“It’s going to carry on [functioning] in a high-production environment, as opposed to something where you’ll have to call out an engineer every so often.”

Harris has extended this philosophy of simplicity to his approach to the market, too.

He said: “We’re aiming for that kind of digital print market, where there are companies that don’t really want to go for the all-singing-all-dancing models that are out there. I feel they’re overpriced.”

Harris has already seen significant interest in the new model, which will initially cost around £12,850 as a sort of "introductory offer".

Harris said he didn’t want to oversell before the machines had had a chance to be made: “When we get the word out there, people tend to want them, so we’ve got to be very cautious and careful the way we’re marketing them.”

The show model exhibited in Milan, in fact, had shortly beforehand just been a finished prototype.

“We had a hybrid model, kind of the pre-production model that we put together. We made a few modifications and it was a big hit.”