Frank Steel Displays has bought Australia’s biggest diecutter, ahead of planned expansions into digital and trade display manufacture.
With a maximum cutting size of 1524 x 2667mm, the Taiwanese-made Crest Clamshell 2.5M can cut large format sheets, Frank Steel claims it will deliver accuracy and speed unprecedented in the Australian market.
The new diecutter will cut materials from paper to plastic straight after printing on the company’s twin Screen Sias 6 Multiforma 165x215cm large format presses.
The Crest Clamshell will supercede a 2x2m rollercutter and 1700x1300mm diecutter when it begins operation in late March.
Frank Steel director Anthony Steel, the fifth generation owner of the 118-year-old multi-award-winning family business, says they often had to either print two smaller sheets and glue them together or cut and fold a large sheet on both rollercutter and diecutter.
“Previously we had to design our point of sale displays to diecut size rather than print size, now we can do it all in one smooth process for any design,” he says.
Steel says rollercutters do not have the accuracy of diecutters, and points out that the Clamshell can also use a creasing matrix, which gives a more defined crease and therefore a quality job.
“This large size diecutter complements our printing presses and other finishing equipment. Our customers will reap the benefit due to cost savings and speed of production,” he says.
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He says the Clamshell, which was ‘unbelievably hard to source’, will significantly improve efficiency and time to market, an important point of difference in competition with China which can take up to six weeks to manufacture and ship orders.
Steel says this is all part of a plan for a ‘backwards’ switch to digital, starting with bigger finishing equipment and trade printing while the company saves for future press investment and waits for digital presses to be cost effective, which he says will probably be in 18 months to two years.
“Digital presses are getting large enough and fast enough to outstrip cutters, so it’s worth buying this to service them in the future,” he says.
Other recent investments towards this goal include a new Lamina 2200 Gluer straight line with workstation, one of only a few in Australia.
The new equipment will also significantly expand Frank Steel’s trade finishing offerings, particularly for digital printers that need to diecut jobs with larger run quantities.
Steel says: “Traditional plotter style cutting tables can be a bottleneck in production because of their slow cutting speeds.”
“Even with an additional expense of a dieforme some jobs will be cheaper to cut with the clamshell. Our focus is to capture the die cutting side of the digital printing market as well as servicing our own needs.”
He says a number of digital printers are already interested and that the packaging industry is another potential trade partner.
The Clamshell features topcutting (cutting through the top layer of material but not the bottom one); cutting depth adjustable to 0.0005 inch increments; automatic lubrication; and the flattest platen in the industry, giving reduced set-up times and simpler operation.
Frank Steel is a ten-time winner of the POPAI OMA Awards.
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