Ultra finishing targets growth with Yawa Foiler

Print Solutions

Rugby decorative print finishers Ultra Finishing has expanded its in-house foiling capability with its investment in a Yawa automatic foil stamping machine from Terry Cooper Services.

Ultra Finishing was established in 2001 by Tony Shaw, Gary Smith and Richard Pettifer who all have a lifetime of print trade experience. It initially offered encapsulation but gradually expanded its services to include spot UV, aqueous and thermal lamination.

Foiling is the latest addition with a Heidelberg foiler joining the products available in May 2016. ‘As a company we have built up a reputation for service and quality and our move into foiling proved very successful which led to the latest purchase of the Yawa,’ stated Tony.

He continued, ‘We were looking for a machine that would complement the cylinder. The combination of the two machines gives us the flexibility to produce any type of foiling and embossing across a full range of materials.

‘Ultra’s niche is small to medium sized jobs, producing high quality decorative finishes for the commercial print industry. The Yawa will allow us to maintain quality, improve turnaround and at the same time increase capacity. Our expectations are that we will grow overall sales by 20% over the next two years.’

Currently customers of the £750,000 turnover operation are within a 50 mile radius. Tony said that with the ability to offer a high quality ‘one stop shop’ service at competitive prices, location and geography will become less important enabling Ultra Finishing to expand its market reach.

The decision to invest in the solution was made after considered research. ‘We heard about the Yawa from a friend in the trade and visited a similar machine at Ipex,’ said Tony. ‘Through another contact we met up with Dean from TCS and viewed a same spec machine in London.’

The efficient and easy to operate Yawa delivers accurate, adjustable impression for foil stamping, embossing and die cutting. It has a programmable colour touch screen control system, missed sheet detector and four independent heating zones with digital control. Two cross pull foil rewind units to provide excellent foil economy 2900 impressions per hour with a massive 110 tons of pressure.

It is easy to change from job to job or from foil stamping to die cutting and the automatic feeder rolls back quickly to give easy access for make ready. Its air blast system of the foil stamping machine helps to separate foil from stock on critical jobs.