Autoprint’s first Fine Coat 105 Drip-off UV coater to Warner Printers

Innovative post-print coater for visual and textured effects

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Autoprint
Autoprint received an overwhelming response for its UV double coater at Pamex. It is the first time a dedicated offline drip-off machine is available in India in the 105 format.

Autoprint has the distinction of pioneering the manufacture of sophisticated printing and post press machines with an eye for the Indian print industry market but with the quality and engineering tolerances as well as features that enable it to supply globally, and especially to other parts of Asia. The company generally seeks to fill gaps and pain points for the Indian industry by combining automation and digital technologies at its R&D center in Coimbatore.

This time Autoprint has come up with an innovative solution for large commercial printers and book exporters and packaging printers that need to sustainably provide special textured and haptic effects on their prints using drip-off coatings. For years, lamination has been used to protect printed matter and enhance print value. However, there is an increasing concern about the environmental impact of traditional lamination methods. The durability of lamination has also been questioned.

Addressing these issues effectively while enhancing the visual appeal of the printed material such as book covers and monocartons, Autoprint’s innovative Fine Coat 105 satisfies the customer need for higher productivity and additional safety features with the design of its UV drip-off double coater in the 105 format (30 x 40-inches).

In my short visit to Pamex in Mumbai earlier this year, this was the postpress ancillary machines that stood out. Speaking about my general reluctance to praise machines at first look, I wrote, “However, I will take a risk and reveal only that there is a very interesting machine at the show which is a drip-off coating press that will come in very handy, even for carton converters who already have long presses with extra units for drip-off coatings on them. Of course, the converters are smarter than me, but it would make sense to have an Indian-manufactured, reliable, and efficient drip-off coating press that can add value to several multicolor presses.”

First Fine Coat 105 UV drip-off coater to Warner Printers in Bengaluru

Autoprint received an overwhelming response for its UV drip-off coating machine at Pamex. It is the first time a dedicated offline drip-off machine is available in India in the 105 format. The company bagged four orders from Indian print businesses and has a good number of leads in hand. The first machine is scheduled for installation at Warner Printers in Bengaluru in mid-June.

The Fine Coat 105 Drip off & UV coating machine is suitable for a variety of UV coating applications such as drip-off and texture coatings including soft-touch coatings. It can also be used for full-sheet UV, aqueous, flood coating, spot coating, and spot-not coating. Among its carton and packaging applications, apart from the drip-off and special haptic effects, blister and barrier coatings can also be done viably without having to invest in long presses with double coaters.

The innovative double coater has a maximum sheet size of 30 x 40 inches, a specially made and configured stream feeder that enables the entire process to efficiently handle substrates to 600 gsm. The 8,000 sheets an hour machine contains an alcohol-dampening system and an automatic roller coater with changeable anilox rollers for a variety of UV coatings. The double coater is connectable to UV and IR driers with an automatic stacker and for maintenance, the gripper system can be taken out for cleaning.

Autoprint has built up an enormously positive reputation globally over the past 30 years with its desktop presses, multicolor presses and die-cutters, and inspection machines. Its reputation for straight-talking and transparent selling has helped it reach a worldwide installed base of 13,500 machines, thus far.

2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India

Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.

The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry. While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.

The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.

Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.

Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.

Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.

– Naresh Khanna

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