27 August 2018 Finishing

Zenith first with Heidelberg's Chinese-made foiler

Welsh company takes the first Promatrix 106 FC foiler cutter as third investment in Heidelberg finishing.

Zenith Print & Packaging is following up installation of an eight-unit perfecting Speedmaster XL106 at sister company Zenith Media with the first dedicated Masterwork Promatrix 106 FC foiler/cutter in the UK.

This will be the third of the machines that Chinese company Masterwork builds in partnership with Heidelberg and the first foiling machine from the company since the partnership deal. In China Masterwork machines are used to foil the lavish cigarette cartons that are a feature of the company’s tobacco industry.

The Treforest company has previously acquired a Promatrix 106 CS cutting and tripping platen, following that in 2016 with a Diana Smart 80 folder-gluer. Group managing director John Mooney says: "We have been very pleased with the Promatrix CS die cutter and the Diana Smart folder-gluer so it wasn’t a hard decision to opt to source our foiling machine from Heidelberg this time round. We handle high quality work for coin and metal collectors and retail applications and foiling gives a stand out, luxury finish to a product.”

The Promatrix 106 CS was the first of the Chinese generation platens placed with a UK customer when installed in 2015.

The new machine is capable of handling substrates from 90gsm to 4mm corrugated at throughput up to 7,500cph. Side lay adjustment is by servo and tooling under pneumatic control for fast and accurate switch over.

Mooney says the folder will be used on runs from 500 to 500,000, in the main for gift box and applications for coil collectors. It will be used on some work printed at Zenith Media in Pontypridd where the eight-unit ‘push to stop’ press has replaced two older machines.

Mooney became managing director of the group after first buying Zenith from the receiver and then Mid Wales Litho in 2015 to create Zenith Media. Both deals and subsequent investment have been supported by the Welsh government.

Gareth Ward