What Press to Choose

We have a need to score and die cut bus card slits on a 12,000 7.5 x 14 111lb card stock. What press will work the best? We have always outsourced the work but need to bring it inhouse to speed up the process. What are the plus’s and negitive’s’s for working with the different press’s ie - scuffing, registrsation, die snap, quality. It would be nice if foil, emossing and numbering were possible but at this time just the perfing, die cutting and scoring are our needs.

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Hi Western,

I know I am biased, but I would go with the Heidelberg windmill 10 x 15. We run this kind of work from time to time on a windmill, and it is a pleasure. When set up properly, these kind of jobs will run themselves while you work on other things. You will be able to score and slit or perf in the same run and the registration is spot on.

You may have to pay attention to scuffing if you are running something with the print side down, as ink will transfer to, and build up on the tympan depending on the piece.

You can number, score, die cut, perf, emboss and print with fantastic quality. As for foil stamping, a windmill will also do great, but it is a semi-permanent attachment, and you will have a lot of work to do to set it up and remove it. Shops I have been in usually will have a press set up for foil stamping permanently and have others to take care of the other stuff.

If you are looking to expand on your commercial jobs like this, you might want to keep an eye out for a Heidelberg windmill 13 x 18. Basically the same press, but with a larger capacity.

Bill Cook

i think I’d go with a windmill too. They are still in common usage here in the US, so parts would not be hard to come by. I’ve seen a number listed for sale in the last year or so, at quite reasonable prices.

windmills are great for this. Most commercial die cutters use Kluges foil stamping and Heidelburg cylinder presses for diecutting.