Cutter / Slitter / Creaser

[Shawnd]

Anyone using a Graphic Whizard / Therm-o-type / Duplo or Horizon for finishing your postcards, especially full bleed? Currently using a non-programmable guillotine cutter and looking for a way to speed up the process, whether it is going to a programmable cutter or one of these do it all units.

 

[JustinB]

I have a Duplo 646 and LOVE IT. It's super accurate and customizable and has been flawless for us. We wiped out over half our guillotine work. Postcards, bus cards, creased notecards, bookmarks.... all moved to the Duplo. Can't go wrong!

 

[arossetti]

I can second the Duplo. Awesome product.

 

[Rocket]

Programmable cutter/creaser/perforator

http://www.uchida-machinery.com/portfolio-type/aerocut-quatro/

 

[jrsc]

what kind of volume are people putting through the duplo? Seems like it would be great for low quantity jobs but would you do jobs of 10,000 - 20,000 postcards? Seems like it would take forever and it's not like you can load a huge pile in and have it cut the whole thing. We can usually cut a ream of postcards on our programmable guillotine in about 5 minutes with bleeds. I would love to get one but they seem like a lot of money for the volume you can put through them. Now if I can load up 5 reams and have them all done unattended at a speed that kept up with our printer I would have one in a second.

 

[Shawnd]

If money was no object for $115K the Horizon Smartslitter would be my choice, you can put reams in it and put a conveyor out the back and do large jobs unattended, that is what I am looking for, just don't need that much of a machine.

 

[JustinB]

I'd say we get around 6 13x19's per minute when doing 8 up postcards or 24 up business cards.

I wouldn't do 10k postcards but regularly do 2500. I can just set it and walk away and do something else while it processes. That's what makes it so great, I'm not tied to it like I am the guillotine.

It's so easy that my graphic designers (who run my imagepresses for me) run the duplo too. It spreads the work load and makes everyone's lives better. Production doesn't feel so overwhelmed and the designers like seeing the work they designed spit out as a finished product.

 

[arossetti]

what kind of volume are people putting through the duplo? Seems like it would be great for low quantity jobs but would you do jobs of 10,000 - 20,000 postcards? Seems like it would take forever and it's not like you can load a huge pile in and have it cut the whole thing. We can usually cut a ream of postcards on our programmable guillotine in about 5 minutes with bleeds. I would love to get one but they seem like a lot of money for the volume you can put through them. Now if I can load up 5 reams and have them all done unattended at a speed that kept up with our printer I would have one in a second.

We do a lot of 100 quantity business card orders, 50-100 postcards/notecards/etc. Larger digitally run jobs will go to the Polar along with pretty much all offset. We are setup to do a lot of short run projects in conjunction with traditional larger jobs.

 

[jrsc]

Does anybody have the duplo integrated fold system? A 746 with that looks awesome. We are currently doing 45,000 pieces on an 80lb cover that we are creasing, cutting and folding separately. It's really making me want one of these.

 

[rainman23]

we have the Duple 745, amazing piece of kit, started with the 645 and loved it, just wanted something faster with the amount of work we were putting through it. accuracy sheet after sheet is fantastic, larger feed tray and larger stacker, with auto card jogger. we have also taken half the work away from the guillotine. if you do large runs with little change then maybe the guillotine is the way to go, but we would happy run 10k A6 postcards through the 745, impose correctly on the digi press and just pack from the stacker on the 745.

 

[jrsc]

Rainman23, So you found the 745 worth the extra money over the 645? From what I can tell it's quite a bit more expensive. Is it a lot faster than the 645? On average how many 12 x 18 sheets per minute?

 

[rainman23]

sorry JRSC for the long delay in replying, for some reason I'm not getting email notification form the site, yes the 745 was definitely worth the extra investment, we see a 50% speed increase on average going through the machine, plus with deeper feed and deeper output stacker less intervention from the user. difficult to give a speed per sheet as depends on the number of cuts, creases, etc.

 

[prwhite]

Rainman, If you're not getting notifications, you should check your subscriptions. It looks like you are not subscribed to this thread.

 

[jrsc]

sorry JRSC for the long delay in replying, for some reason I'm not getting email notification form the site, yes the 745 was definitely worth the extra investment, we see a 50% speed increase on average going through the machine, plus with deeper feed and deeper output stacker less intervention from the user. difficult to give a speed per sheet as depends on the number of cuts, creases, etc.

That's good to hear. We just ordered a 746 with the integrated folder this week. I plan on putting about 50k sheets a month through it.

 

[Craig]

We have the Graphic Whizard PTSCC. Does everything we need at half the cost of Duplo.

 

[Shawnd]

Would love to see some video of that 746 when you get it installed, that looks to be an "all in one" solution that should save many man hours, if it works.

 

[Kees]

I hope you have done a good test before buying this machine, had two demo's, was not impressed.

 

[Shawnd]

We have the Graphic Whizard PTSCC. Does everything we need at half the cost of Duplo.

The other machine we are looking at is the GW PT 335SCC Multi, is that the machine you have Craig? What are you thoughts on it? Are you doing full bleed postcards on it?

 

[Shawnd]

Wierd question, has anyone sent the Mohawk 12x18 sheets with 4up magnet 5.5x8.5 postcards through their SCC?

 

[Craig]

Hey Shawn,
We have the PTSCC, the Multi came out after we got ours, of course. To be honest we use it to cut business cards the most and to score our fold-over cards. We have a few jobs that we perf as well. I think we had our install last July and have run about 200,000 sheets. For the most part it runs just fine, like any finishing equipment they have their days.