Benny Landa demonstrates the S10 press
Sean Smyth took a look at Landa’s S10 printer at a trade press event this week ahead of drupa in May.
Well, while he may have been quiet, Benny Landa and his team have certainly been working hard to bring the digital nanography process to market. And they will be doing so at drupa. They are taking orders for the S10 press, a 4 or 7 colour B1 single sided machine rated at 6,500 sheets per hour that can be upgraded in the field to 13,000 sheets per hour. The first machines will be installed at the start of 2017 and there will be many takers.
Benny Landa’s enthusiasm is undiminished, his talk of ‘Making existing technology obsolete’ may be touching on hyperbole but that is his way. With 55 shows in 11 days he is promising to ‘Knock your socks off”. As he says at the delivery of the press running at 13,000 sheets per hour: ‘You spell it F***ing Amazing’. The operation is impressive, particularly the brand new ink plant that will be in the new Landa campus bring the various facilities together.
It is not just nanographic printing, they will be showing nano metallography at the show, placing silver nano-metal flakes onto labels on a narrow web press. This is not a digital process – yet – the pattern is printed with a UV curing fluid and the silver particles are transferred from a specialist roller in the nano metallography unit. It is a pretty good result, easily mistaken for a foiled result without the waste associated with hot or cold foiling, or the expense of buying a metallised substrate and overprinting with white. Matthew Lightstone, director of Nano-Metallisation, showed the 25 kg of waste foil needed to deliver approximately 4 g of actual ‘Metal’ onto labels. They are convinced there will be cost, ease of use and environmental benefits for this radical new process. The range of colours and patterns is not here yet, but it soon will be and there will be a new high value decorative embellishment process to bring new capability to labels, packaging and print. There will be new applications, for example foiling microwaveable and retort packs.
