The company held an open house at its Silverwater headquarters yesterday, with the press now fully operational after being installed in June.
See pictures from The Laminating Company’s open house.
Believed to be the first installation of the machine in the southern hemisphere, TLC managing director David Rogers sees the hot foil stamping press as a valuable addition to both the company and the local market.
“We believe we’re filling a need in the Sydney market,” Rogers told ProPrint. “At least what our clients have told us is that there’s not enough capacity in the Sydney market.”
Rogers describes the 18-tonne press as “the most flexible high-speed machine we could get”, with the machine’s ability to perform “six or seven different processes” – including diecutting, perfecting, foiling onto plastic, relief embossing and holographic foiling – one of the main appeals for a company facing its fair share of competition.
“For our business, it allows us to do the big-run, big-format foiling,” Rogers said.
“We could see the laminating business was dying, so many printing companies are setting up laminators with their printers.”
Rogers also has no qualms about making such a big investment during difficult financial times.
“We believe it was the right thing to do,” he said. “We could see that business was contracting because of certain forces in the market.”
“We felt that if we didn’t invest for the long-term that eventually the business would die. So there wasn’t really a choice, it wasn’t so much a decision of why should we do it but why shouldn’t we.
“And we’ve had a bit of luck now that the market’s picking up, because it takes 18 months to build one of these things, so now if someone else wants one, they can’t get one until then.”
TLC purchased the press through MAN Ferrostaal at May’s PacPrint 09, with Rogers then describing the move into large-format foiling as “a natural progression for us”.
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