Brunel was set up by engineer Martyn Wright in 1989 initially to process industrial products such as control panels, but, as manufacturing business declined, it branched into a range of products including nameplates, industrial labels, corporate signage and trophies and corporate awards. Today the company, based in Clevedon, North Somerset, engraves and etches a wide range of materials and products, including plastics, metals and glass, and can handle both flat and 3D objects.

The latest evolution has been to embrace printing as a production process for the signs, labels, badges and trophies that make up the company’s workload. "These days company logos are being designed with drop shadows, halftones and other graphic elements that are difficult to reproduce by engraving," says Wright. "Customers are also asking for full-colour photographs, and there is simply no way that they can be reproduced by engraving."

New needs
It was this need for more complicated graphics that led the 22-staff £1.2m-turnover firm to invest in a Mimaki UJF-3042FX digital printer in March last year. The UJF is a small-format UV-cured flatbed printer, which uses LED curing. The printable area is A3-sized (300x420mm) and objects up to 50mm deep can be printed thanks to the adjustable printhead height. For Brunel that ability to print onto 3D objects, albeit only on relatively flat surfaces, is a boon.

The Mimaki wasn’t quite the company’s first foray into print however. This happened three months earlier. "We had originally purchased a different flatbed machine, and while that was being repaired we were supplied with a UJF on loan," says Wright. "We realised that the UJF was a better bet for our business."

Wright declines to reveal the details of the other machine, but does say that it used solvent inks. "We had issues with the solvent inks attacking the printheads causing them to deteriorate," he says. "It was also more complicated and time-consuming to look after."

Once Brunel had elected to make the switch, preparing for the arrival of the UJF was simple. "We had to prepare a larger than usual workbench for it; most of our benches are standard kitchen worktops, and the UJF needed something slightly deeper," says Wright. "And that was it; GPT installed it and away we went. Basic operation takes a couple of hours’ training; it’s very simple to use."

Most of the jobs processed on the machine are one-offs, reports Wright. But because some are multiples, the firm has used its engineering roots to produce jigs that can be used to hold the items in place on the bed at the same time. Wright says that it has been easy to develop jigs that work in tandem with the RIP software used to layout jobs to ensure accurate positioning. Manufacturer Mimaki adds that, if printers don’t want to create their own light-absorbing jigs, a number of companies offer these for Mimaki flatbed printers, including DigitalBlanks.com

Wright says that Brunel is well satisfied with the speed of the printer, which takes around two minutes to print in four-pass mode at a resolution of 720x600dpi. In 16-pass mode, at 1,440x1,200dpi, that goes up to eight minutes.

One gripe he does have, however, is with how well the UJF prints onto metals, which, though Brunel uses the UJF mostly to print plastics, especially acrylics, do still make up around 20% of the machine’s workload.

"One thing that we’d like, and I think that it is peculiar to us, is better durability of the print on metal," says Wright. "You need to make sure that the metal has been very thoroughly cleaned and to use the primer. If someone forgets to do that then in six months we can have the customer coming back complaining that the ink is coming off. We’ve spent a lot of time working out the best way of printing onto metal, and in truth, the old machine was better on metal, but it is only a small part of our total print work."

Mimaki responds that metal, glass and other nonporous substrates will normally require some form of pre-treatment to ensure satisfactory ink bonding. The manufacturer says that the unique factor with the Mimaki UJF-3042FX is its ability to inkjet a primer in perfect registration with the coloured layer and only where it’s required to ensure the process is carried out, uses minimal fluid and occurs only where required.

Another slight issue Wright has had is with ink shelf-life. "We had problems with some inks supplied that didn’t have the full 12 months of shelf-life left. So I’d recommend anyone buying ink to check the use-by date."

Wright adds, however, that in some ways ink going out of date actually shows how frugal the machine is with ink – a very valuable feature in any machine. And Mimaki explains that, because inks are manufactured in Japan with a 12 month shelf-life, but then transported via various warehouses, the shelf-life will necessarily be slightly less than 12 months by the time the ink reaches the printer. The manufacturer adds that while all inks are supplied with a minimum of three months shelf-life, it’s extremely rare that inks arrive with such a short shelf-life remaining.

"While, as Brunel Engraving is seeing, the Mimaki UJF-3042FX is extremely frugal when it comes to ink use, we’re not aware of any issues with regards to customers’ inks running out of date, although we would always recommend good stock rotation, as you would expect," says a Mimaki spokesperson.

Aside from theses slight sticking points, the UJF has proved to be mostly trouble free. The only other niggles were "a couple of minor issues with the printhead height settings," but these were resolved "pretty quickly".

So would Brunel Engraving buy another? "I’d probably buy the bigger UJF-6042," says Wright. With a bed twice the size – 600x420mm – and a maximum printhead height of 150mm, the 6042 enables bigger and thicker products to be printed, and Wright is happy enough with the printer’s overall reliability that he’d rather take the bigger format than have the security of two smaller machines.

Wright is also very pleased with the way adding print to Brunel’s offering has developed his business. One growth application the machine has enabled, is exterior signage where the firm prints onto the back of clear acrylic and then backs the print up with self-adhesive vinyl to produce durable signs or panels in full-colour.

Broader portfolio
Adding print has also enabled the firm to offer new variations on existing products, either enhancing their appearance and graphic sophistication, widening the range of materials that can be used or reducing prices. One example is industrial labels, which, by printing onto vinyl rather than engraving into metal, can be produced much more cost-effectively.

Print, then, is a growing part of the business, now accounting for some 15% of turnover. But Wright is adamant that the move into printing is an adjunct to the firm’s core engraving processes rather than an attempt to attack the adjacent markets served by printers and sign makers. In fact, he sees the addition of the UJF as an ideal opportunity for the firm to offer trade printing services to firms in those sectors who don’t have their own machine, with some 7.5% of business, and growing, coming from trade customers.

"We consider ourselves to be engravers," he says. "Anything that we produce that’s not engraved still has to be a quality our customers will be happy with. I consider that we are still in the engraving industry, it’s just that now we are using equipment that can also be used for other things."

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SPECIFICATIONS
Speed 720x600, four-pass: sub two minutes; 1,400x1,200, 16-pass: eight minutes
Format 300x420mm
Product depth Up to 50mm (150mm on UJF 3042HG)
Colours CMYK, LC, LM, white, clear and primer
UV-curing technology LED
Price £22,995
Contact GPT 01189 294429 www.g-p-t.co.uk; Hybrid Services 01270 501900 www.hybridservices.co.uk

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Company profile
Based in Clevedon, West Somerset, Brunel Engraving produces trophies, signs, labels and name badges using engraving, etching and latterly printing. It was established in 1989 and has since diversified to offer a wide variety of related services to businesses and consumers via a range of e-commerce enabled websites.

Why it was bought...
The firm bought a Mimaki UJF-3042FX UV-cured flatbed printer last March to process those signs, labels, badges and trophies that customers now want complex, full-colour logos or photographs on. The UV printer was bought to replace a solvent machine Brunel had been using for three months because with the previous machine, the firm encountered problems with "inks attacking the printheads causing them to deteriorate."

How it has performed...
Despite a few issues with print adhesion on metal, the machine has proved mostly very reliable, reports founder of Brunel Engraving Martyn Wright.