Last year it was one of the first UK firms to install a BSR 550 Servo rotary die-cutter from Swiss manufacturer Bograma and supplied by Friedheim International. The machine uses flexible magnetic dies, on the same principle as well established rotary label die-cutters, but enlarged to take B2-plus formats (up to 550x750mm). This has boosted speeds and efficiency of die-cutting enormously over the company’s original converted Heidelberg SBG letterpress flatbed cylinder machine.
Nick Jones is managing director of Ultragraph, having taken over in 1992 from his father, who set up the company in 1973. “A large proportion of our work is die-cut,” he says. “Short-run packaging, point-of-sale and innovative direct mail products being the mainstay of our turnover.
“As with most small commercial printers, we were die-cutting using a Heidelberg SBG, which is slow. The die-cut sheets pretty much always need trimming on the guillotine afterwards to strip the outer waste, which can lead to consistency problems and is time-consuming. If we were cutting things like cartons the number of nicks needed to keep the sheet intact made stripping off the waste very difficult afterwards. Furthermore, if a product had features like an aperture then removal of that by hand could take an age.”
Jones wanted to improve productivity and although he considered autoplatens from Bobst and Sanwa, he was more attracted to the Bograma, he says: “I had seen this machine at Ipex in 2010 and could instantly see the benefits.”
The Bograma has two magnetic cylinders to which the flexible dies or cutting plates are mounted, along with a sheet positioning system for register. A male die with cutting and creasing rules is mounted to the upper cylinder, while a female die with creasing channels and cutting anvils goes on the lower cylinder. For cut-only or kiss-cut work a hardened cutting plate is used instead of a female die.
The machine cuts, creases and strips in-line. A vacuum belt holds the cut sheets together before they reach the stripping station, so no nicks are needed. At the stripping station the main waste is diverted to a waste bin or extraction system while the stripped product transfers to the UEB550, an array of programmable servo-driven air-blast devices that blow any waste apertures out of the sheet. “Holes as small as 3mm are perfectly removed, even at high speed,” Jones says.
Sheets can be delivered onto a flat delivery table, but Ultragraph has a Palamides Delta 705 XS automatic delivery unit that was modified to be connected to the Bograma line.
Compared to the Heidelberg cylinder, the makeready and production speeds are a huge improvement, Jones says. “For something that takes an hour or an hour and a half to make ready on the cylinder, you can be up and running in 20 to 30 minutes on the Bograma. The running speeds are much faster, but the real killer thing is that you’ve got flat sheets in one end, and finished product out the other.”
“The quality of the finished product is simply fantastic. We have die-cut materials from around 100 microns up to 460 microns with products ranging from four-up to around 64-up. There are no nicks at all. The programmable air-blast does actually remove all of the inner waste from the product and once settled down on a run the job is really easy to handle even at relatively high production speeds.”
Die making
The B2-plus format flexible metal cutting and creasing dies can so far only be made in Germany, with about five suppliers. Ultragraph has so far used Kocher & Beck, in Pliezhausen. This company first made magnetic flexible dies in 1981 for narrow-web rotary label work. Its dies have a long life and can be reused over several jobs. The standard finish is guaranteed for at least 400,000 impressions, and for a small extra price they can be laser hardened to cope with a million or more impressions.
The cost of dies is the only major drawback identified by Jones: “We’ve found that the dies are a precision tool and they cost more than we anticipated. When we were looking at the feasibility we had some sample prices, but the actual dies are more.”
The price depends on the level of complexity, he says. “We’re finding that the die for a simple presentation folder is about 20% more expensive than a conventional die. For more complex products the cost can just rocket – we had a die made just last week that was £850. But when you see the complexity of those dies, they probably couldn’t be made conventionally because they are too intricate.”
He’s full of praise for the quality of the dies and the fast turnround though. “Service is phenomenal. When we send a drawing over we normally have the die back in our hands within three days. We’ve had some incredible dies made in terms of complexity.” Kocher & Beck has a plant in Leicester but as yet this cannot make the larger dies for the Bograma.
“Where you do score is that you only need one set of dies – with a Bobst or a Sanwa you need a conventional cutting forme plus stripping dies. If you’ve got blanking you need a blanking die as well. So for medium runs, I’d say the flexible die is slightly cheaper.”
So far the machine, installed last September, has been very reliable, with no mechanical or electronics issues except for a faulty Ethernet cable on delivery. “The machine was delivered and sited in one day. Electrics, configuration and commissioning happened on the second day, then training commenced,” Jones says.
“Training was good from an operation point of view but because of the newness of the system we have had to learn a lot about getting jobs to run by trial and error, which has been frustrating at times. Bograma and Friedheim have been able to offer some advice, but it really has been a case of trying different techniques to get the right results.”
He’s happy with the support offered: “We’ve had a number of pieces of kit from Friedheim now. The service is always excellent and they’ve got a good bunch of lads out on the road in terms of field engineers. The office is efficient. We have also had a couple of things from Bograma and we know whom to talk to there.”
Pros and cons
Jones says: “The best thing about the machine is that you can put a flat sheet in at the feeder and have the finished product come out at the other end and it’s fast.
“The worst thing is the learning curve that we’ve had to go through get to where we are now. This no doubt will be improved as Bograma and Friedheim get more machines out into the field. I would like the machine to be able to take thicker substrates – the maximum is currently 500 microns.
“I still like working machines so I make it my business to learn, especially something like this which is new technology. I cannot believe how fantastic it is to use once you’ve got it all settled down. All of the strain has gone out of the job.”
SPECIFICATIONS
Max speed 12,000 cycles/hour or 165m/minute
Punch cylinder circumference 813mm
Working width 550mm
Min format 297x210mm
Max format 550x750mm
Min thickness About 80gsm
Max thickness About 0.5mm
Footprint About 4.1x1.5m
Price From £250,000 depending on configuration
Contact Friedheim 01442 206100 www.friedheim.co.uk
Company profile
Ultragraph was formed in 1973 and today employs around 25 staff with a turnover of £3.2m. Production equipment includes a 10-colour Heidelberg XL 75, a seven-colour HP Indigo 5600, two Stahl folders, one MBO folder, two guillotines, a new Muller Martini Presto II digital saddle stitching line. Die-cutting is handled by the Heidelberg SBG Cylinder and the Bograma BSR 550 Servo. Pre-press is served by a Heidelberg Pre-Press Manager workflow outputting offset plates to a pair of Heidelberg Suprasetter 74 platesetters, plus HP and Epson inkjet proofers.
Why it was bought...
Ultragraph managing director Nick Jones says he wanted the new machine to improve productivity and consistency. The Heidelberg SBG Cylinder is fine but it is slow to set up and jobs need further work after cutting, whereas the Bograma produces finished sheets. The company did consider machines from other manufacturers but in the end decide that the Bograma was the best overall option.
How it has performed...
Jones says: “The machine is helping us compete better in the short to medium run packaging sector, which is obviously one of the areas that we are targeting for growth. It generally vastly improves our value-added numbers, ensuring that we keep more of the money in a job within the business.
“We’re finding it’s very competitive for short to medium runs, of say 10,000 to 20,000, and we’ve run up to 60,000 sheets. If they are four or six-up it’s quite efficient for that sort of work.”
