Advice on business cards and letterhead equipment.

[Chris Wool]

you really need the card to be 350gsm and the printer to be A3+ then you have to have a guillotine.
the biggest problem is the toner usage is high on some cards very high on flyers,
which makes lasers expensive to run but can be overcome by going on a click contract, which will fix the costs.

if you do it half hearted you will give up as to costly to run and hassle.

enjoy

chris

[Stuart Green]

Hi Chris,

I have seen some a3 printers for about £850.00 and it is very tempting. one guy i know is also on a click contract but like you say the problem is they are too much hassel as you have to meet the volumes to keep the manufacturers happy. are there no printers around suitbale for small orders which are cheap and have economical/efficient toners?? also are there no manufacturers out there making third party toners for these machines??

I take it you call them office machines 🙄

[Karl Williams]

Stuart, why do you always ask for a cheap machine? Yes these kits are expensive but that comes with the job. You always seem to know a guy who can so if this this is the case why ask on here?

[Chris Wool]

with the click comes a full warranty of all consumables and drums etc. i only have to worry about the paper.

still need a good guillotine could be more than the printer.

chris

[David Rowland]

the answer would be to use the ‘friends’ printer to produce your output, they might be glad of the business.

[Adam Triggs]

Hi Stuart,

Chris and Dave are right,

We invested in a digital printer two years ago. Chris is correct on the click cost. As every side passes through the machine we get a charge. But if the machine beaks down an engineer arrives within hours. Using "domestic" printers for printing can be time consuming and expensive. However going with a commercial machine you will need to feed it alot of work.

The printer is one thing and then there is finishing. Guillotine for Cutting and a creaser for anything folded creasing is essential for making the product look good.

We would be happy to offer a UKSB members, if your interested.

Any queries about setting up printing give me a call and I can fill you in.
01354 653826

Cheers
Adam.

[Lee Attewell]

There you go Stuart…A result get it through UKSG.

I was going to say that we do a lot of print work here. But we only use wholesale printers for our work. They’re the experts who have the machinery, the staff and who also carry the warranty of not producing a good finish.

Having said that, can you supply print ready files in the correct format for a printer? If not, then leave it all alone mate, ‘cos it’s a bloody minefield.

I’m lucky here, my lovely wife has been a graphic designer for longer than she’d like to admit it (over 20 years) and she prepares all jobs going off to print.

I’ve looked at going along the digital print option here but the peripheral equipment and staff that you’d need to justify buying such expensive gear make it unworkable.

[Tim Painter]

Unless you have enough work and the budget for a suitable machine. Not just talking an A3 colour laser here you can’t compete.

The only reason I would have one would be for very shorts runs & producing hard copy artwork.

The UK litho market in the main is struggling & prices from some trade suppliers are so low now it’s ridiculous.

Find a trade supplier and mark it up.

[John Gregson]

There’s always the thing we used to do ages ago when getting invoices, letterheads and business cards done – go to a printers. :lol1:

As said above, you’ll need a guillotine and also a laser printer with a straight paper path, not many available that will handle 350gsm upwards.

Cheers John

[Adam Triggs]

John’s raised one of the key points.

Our machine can produce front to back registration within 1mm on an SRA3 sheet. Very important on business cards and booklets.

Would people be interested for me to set up a UKSB price list of business cards flyers and books ?

and do I need to run this offer past a site administrator ?

Cheers
Adam.

[George Elsmore]

quote Adam Triggs:

and do I need to run this offer past a site administrator ?

Cheers
Adam.

:yes1: