The company considered other alternatives, but for John the Versant 4100, the improved version of the 2100/3100 models, could not be beaten.

‘The new 4100 included all the favourites that made the 2100 a winner for us, multiple feeding, inline GBC punching, full capacity stacker and complete booklet making with fore edge trimming and document finishing,’ said Brailsford. ‘Along with the latest high speed Fiery control centre coupled with our automated workflow, improved print image and long sheet capability, the 4100 ticked every box.’

Andrew Crane, sales specialist from Graphic Communications Operations at Xerox UK did not have to try too hard to sell his machine to JBP. ‘John already had his mind made up, the 2100 had been an excellent production machine for this extremely busy printshop. Brailsford Printers have been Xerox customers for almost 20 years and installed a new Iridesse Press back in 2021 with enormous success in producing a huge range of speciality print with embellishments and continues to increase volumes every month, the Versant 4100 Production Press works very well alongside the Iridesse. His employees were up and running with the 4100 the very next day after installation. The set up at Brailsford Printers is the future of print shops, they are super-efficient with minimal touch points, using the most advanced technology and experienced employees that take pride and care in every job printed. John is a great ambassador for our product range.’

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The ColorCut SC6000 is a free-standing, on-demand digital sheet cutter and creaser, with no physical cutting dies or set-up costs. It is targeted at those seeking an affordable, high-capacity device, capable of unattended cutting.

John Brailsford Printers, a Rotherham shop-fronted business, reviewed several potential products. Company owner John Brailsford remarked, ‘We had looked at a variety of potential solutions, but nothing was quite suited to our needs. Either they were too expensive, were overly complex, or they still needed dies to be produced. The previous Intec machine, the SC5000 was close, but not quite large enough to handle the range of stock that we needed to process. We thought we were just going to have to stick to outsourcing any work that required die cutting.

A call from Ray Hillhouse at Morgana introduced the SC6000 to Brailsford, which overcame the limitations of the smaller model. The SC6000 is a hybrid automated cutter that blends flatbed and sheet-fed technologies, to give a maximum working area of 340 x 710mm, plus  a range of updated features.

Mr Brailsford added, ‘We introduced the SC6000 to our studio people initially. They were able to easily understand the ‘front-end’ of the machine. The output from the studio, including cutting requirements and run length, is encapsulated in a QR code, meaning that all the people at the post-press end of the factory need to concern themselves with is selecting the right stock and scanning the QR code printed on the job.

‘This machine is quite amazing. The results have been quite superb. We keep thinking up new ways of using it – with labels, for example, we are now running through our stock of pre-cut labels, and then we can simply use the SC6000 to kiss-cut the labels for us on plain adhesive-backed stock. That means any sized, or shaped, self-adhesive label is possible, and we don’t need to have the expense of holding any stock of various sized at all.’

Mr Brailsford said, ‘The feeder is a critical element for such a machine, and this one is amazing! It will feed virtually any stock, it seems, eliminating any static issues, and the potential for any doubles.’

Accordind to Morgana, particular attention was paid to the feeding system to ensure good performance levels for card, vinyl labels, or even laminated sheets. The SC6000’s auto feeder accepts up to 900 sheets, raising or lowering as required. 

‘We had been sending work such as short-run boxes, pocket folders, and various other cut-outs, to an external supplier. That kind of work has definitely been on the increase, so this really was the right time for us to bring such tasks in-house – it’s going to cut our outwork bill significantly, and therefore will pay for itself in no time,’ added Mr Brailsford.

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The company, which has recently celebrated its 35th anniversary, has used Xerox colour and mono digital presses for the last decade, in addition to two PressTek DI offset machines that are still in regular use, and added a Versant 3100 five years ago.

‘Prior to Covid, we were needing an extra press and wondering what to do next,’ founder John Brailsford told Digital Printer, adding, ‘We were going to add another Versant for volume and capacity.’ With the arrival of the pandemic, the purchase had to be put on hold, but the company weathered the lockdowns well, through Mr Brailsford ensuring staff retention and via ongoing support from loyal customers.

Once in a position to resume the search, Mr Brailsford was introduced to the Iridesse by Xerox account manager Sarah Timlin. ‘Sarah showed me the Iridesse, which was new to me, but outside our budget and running costs. We worked on the numbers, servicing and click charge; I took a bit of convincing, without seeing the machine in the flesh but we put it in on the basis that it would be returned if we didn’t like it.’

The decision was taken in May this year and the installation was completed in June. Mr Brailsford was impressed by both the speed of the machine and by its print quality. ‘It eats work and its corner-to-corner tints and solids blew us away, you wouldn’t know it wasn’t from a Heidelberg 75,’ he commented. But as well as solving the productivity problem, the new press has provided ways for the company to enhance its offering to its clients.

‘The icing on the cake is the gold, silver, white and clear colours. We’ve never done metallics without a separate process, but now we can do it the same day, without £50 or £100 blocks and dies, all in one pass and in perfect register,’ said Mr Brailsford. As part of its own familiarisation with the capabilities the extra colours offer, the company has been adding them to client jobs. ‘We’re doing it as a complementary service as part of our learning process which helps our designers in the studio.’

Applications are both aesthetic and pragmatic have included laying silver tint under sci-fi themed illustrations, replacing CMYK ‘gold’ mixes with actual gold toner and using the clear toner to produce a gloss finish on die-cut labels without having to buy additional label stock. The long sheet ability to print to 1.2m has also been used for one-off retail display headers to which gold detailing was added. ‘We’re holding the customer’s hand, saying ‘look what we can do’, we’ll work with you to give you something different,’ said Mr Brailsford.

‘We’ve got the toner unit change down to three minutes, Xerox says 15,’ he added, noting that the metallic silver is the most popular of the additional colours. The addition or substitution of the special colours is done in the prepress studio using Adobe Illustrator, with edited artwork then dropped into the Fiery JobFlow software on the DFE.

In addition to the ability to support fast-turnaround work, including same-day, the arrival of the Iridesse has allowed the Versant 3100, which has a variety of inline finishing options including a GBC punch for wire and comb binding as well as square spine binding, to be brought back into greater use for jobs that don’t need the quality or extra features on the new press. Horizon equipment for offline booklet-making and perfect binding is used for appropriate jobs from all the presses.

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