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Digital printers need scoring machines
One of the problems with any kind of print is that if you try to fold an ink-heavy page, like a solid black cover, the ink will crack and break. Folding puts a lot of pressure on a sheet and stretches the ink laying across its surface. The last thing you want is an unprofessional finish to an otherwise slick piece, right?
To ensure a crackless fold and to maintain image integrity, pages need to be pre-scored before they’re folded. Scoring weakens paper fibers by indenting fold lines. The direction of your paper grain is probably the single most important factor to take into consideration when scoring paper. Scoring across the paper’s grain encourages the sheet to crack rather than the ink. This makes your fold look clean and allows sheets to fold flatter.
When shopping for a scoring machine, you want to consider the number it can be programmed for on a single sheet, its speed, and of course, the width of paper it will accommodate. Lloyd’s has some nice machines to choose from, and our staff is knowledgeable enough to help you find the scoring machine that will keep even your heaviest folds, crackless under pressure.
Direct mail shops can use perforation machine to offer different options
Despite some claims, direct mail is not dying. It continues to be a valuable medium to reach a variety of audiences for impression-based marketing and direct response. As a printer you know that direct response must include a reply device, sometimes including a business reply envelope (BRE).
For many companies and especially nonprofits, direct mail campaigns include a pre-perfed, tear-off sheet to include with their response device or invoice. Many printers buy pre-perfed paper from their suppliers, but they pass that price on to you, and your choice in stock can be limited. You can save money over the long run and offer a greater variety of materials to your customer base by simply purchasing a perforating machine.
It’s not like you’re going to have to hire another specialty trained staff member to run your perf machine. They’re easy to feed, most come with memory settings and they run fast – some run more than 5,000 sheets per hour. The settings are also often customizable, so your perforation doesn’t have to be standard. It can fit the customer’s needs.
So save some time waiting on perf paper orders from your supplier. Add value to your direct mail clients. And, increase your profitability by providing one more flexible service to your repertoire.
Lloyds of Indiana has some great options for low-volume and high-volume perforation machines. Check us out for competitive pricing and great service.
Five Tools Print Shops Can Use to Improve Profitability
You can run a print shop with an off-set press or a digital printer, but you can’t run a profitable shop unless you bring in-house the tools that will help you take projects to completion. It’s one thing to print pages, but what if your customer wants you to bind them? You printed 5,000 sales letters, but now the customer wants to take them somewhere else for mailing? You’re losing out on some valuable revenue by not having a couple extra machines around your office. Add extra profitability to your shop by offering each of these services.
- UV Coaters. Adding a UV Coater will give you the capability to apply hi-gloss, satin or matte coating almost on any printed sheet. There are many configurations to the available coaters on the market. Sizes range from 18” to 30” with a modular design to allow for added components like automatic feeders. This is also an environmentally friendly way to apply a finish to your printing. There’s even one line of UV coating that is 99.9% VOC free – exceeding all environmental air quality regulations. Add that to your marketing and get some new green-minded customers.
- Binding Machinery. Whether it’s low volume presentation binding or high volume commercial applications, binding machinery is a low-cost, yet crucial component to a successful shop. Prepare a presentations or proposals, books or newsletters with the look and feel your customers desire by having available comb, coil, wire or perfect binding. If you bind it, they will come.
- Letter Folders. Add fulfillment services to your shop. Every office needs to send mailed statements, invoices and other marketing material. If it’s going out in a traditional envelope style, there’s a folder to automate the process. These machines fold thousands of sheets per hour. There are tabletop models for low volume or floor models for high volume, but they’re all easy to setup and operate.
- Document Mailing Equipment. While you’re folding some projects, you might as well run an inserter for others. Save time and money by speeding up your mail processing. Inserters and pressure sealers keep your jobs in a neat sequential order so they’re ready for outgoing mail bins. Some inserters can fold and stuff up to five different sheets and BRE’s at 4,000 sheets per hour. Plus, a pressure sealer adds a whole new product type to your offerings.
- Laminators. Laminating adds durability and professionalism to any printing project. Toner, ink jet and UV inks alone are not very durable, but by adding even a thin laminate coating you can prevent ink cracking and insures a long handling life to a piece. Lamination also adds to the look and feel of your work You can impress customers and upsell projects like printing for photos, charts, posters and signage.
Improve your profits by adding to your catalog of finishing services. Lloyds of Indiana has competitive prices and a variety of models in each of these categories.
Lassco CR-50P Electric Corner Rounding Machine (CR-50P)
Some days you just need to cut a lot of corners, and you need to cut them fast. But we’re not talking about taking shortcuts or eliminating steps. We are actually talking about the Lassco CR-50P Electric Corner Rounding Machine. Anyone in the print business knows that occasionally you need to round the corners on photos, laminated ID badges, invitations, and other printed matter. The Lassco CR-50P Electric Corner Rounding Machine is an electric machine that can cut up to 30 strokes per minute, which means you can turn this into a real production machine.
How is it Used?
?The Lassco CR-50P Electric Corner Rounding Machine is designed to cut everything from paper to plastic. It accepts standard, special, and large-sized cutting dies. The CR-50P includes one standard cutting die — 1/8″, 1/4″, 3/8″, 1/2″) unit of your choice — and has 6 speciality dies available from 1/16″ to 1-1/2″.
And How Much Does it Cost
The Lassco CR-50P Electric Corner Rounding Machine is $1422.00 at Lloyd’s, and includes a 1 year manufacturer’s warranty.
Why BIG Print Shops Should Use a Small Hand Scorer/Perforator
\Your shop is multitasking. When business is good, you’ve got 80% of your machines running 80% of the time. Your sales force is lining them up and you’re knocking them down. It’s a mix of new business and repeat customers and you’re very pleased with meeting everyone’s needs with a diversity of services. The big machines pay for themselves and are easy to justify in your business plan. But, what about the those hand-operated gizmos in the back corner? Do they ever get any use?
Big Payoff from a Small Job
Not every project justifies the use of a big machine. Sometimes the setup time alone is the same or longer than it takes for the actual run. And, are 500 pieces worth waiting in the queue if someone could knock them out manually in a couple hours?
You need to take a minute to reflect on the old theater adage, “there are no small parts, only small actors.” Sometimes the smaller jobs are the “rush” jobs. They’re frequently jobs you’ve charged a premium for, AND they’re jobs that a loyal repeat customer has brought to YOU instead of to the chain that’s closer to their office. Do it quick, with the same quality as a high-volume machine, and those customers stay loyal. Keep your bigger machines running without interruption and everybody wins.
Essential Gizmo – The Hand Scorer/Perforator
One must-have tool in the shop is a hand scorer/perforator like the HS-100 Handi-Scor. There’s virtually no setup and you’ll have the capacity to score and perf tent cards, brochures, menus, greeting cards, sales tickets, raffle tickets, business forms, carbonless and more. We’ve got this model and others at Lloyd’s. Check out the selection, and be ready to truly multi-task with efficiency in your shop.