More Cold Foiling Concepts

(NPES International E-commerce Website, August 13, 2008) Heidelberg has developed a cold foil module for the Speedmaster CD 74 and CD 102 press families to cold foil offset prints. This allows metallic, foil-based finishes to be applied to a very wide range of substrates with brilliant, high quality results. Grammages range from 70g/m² up to 400g/m².As a result, label, packaging and commercial printers are able to respond to the growing market demand for high quality finishing.

Since 1999 OFT GmbH Cold Foil Application of Neuss has offered its customers a fully developed technology for cold foiling printed products, and numerous long runs have been produced since then. A machine for this task was built by KBA AG and has been operating since 2007.

The underlying technique that allows any paper material to be finished with silver or other special effect foils is simple. A special OFT (Offset Foil Transfer) adhesive is applied to a portion of the sheet by a standard printing plate in the same way as an ink. On a subsequent unit the foil is unwound and led between a rubber and metal cylinder and is then rewound. The sheet is also passed through this unit and the printed pattern of adhesive on the sheet removes the metallic pigment from the carrier foil with perfect edge definition. After passing between the cylinders the foil is rewound, and one roll of foil is able to finish around 25,000 sheets before needing to be changed.

OFT foils are unwound and transferred from the carrier material to the printed sheets at the same speed as the press itself runs. Foil consumption for printed sheet depends upon the size of the sheet, however much foil is actually applied. Consequently, classic foil stamping is less wasteful for small, isolated applications of foil. Ryobi Ltd. has developed a concept for a sheet-fed press that should increase the added value of a transfer foil applied inline to a printed sheet, This might be a gold foil, stamped or a hologram pattern.