Starleaton Digital Solutions has recorded a ‘sensational’ result for VIEE/PrintCom which ended this Wednesday, 26th September, at Sydney’s Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre.
Focusing heavily on live demonstrations and with four international visitors from suppliers ContraVision, SEAL, Flexa and 3A Composites, Starleaton netted orders across the board for both equipment and wide-format consumables.
“Orders and interest for the new Roland SolJet Pro 4 XR640 were excellent and we also took several orders for the smaller SolJet XC540.,” says
Campbell Hughes with the Flexa MiuraXY trimmer |
John Buitenkamp and Ben Eaton |
Patrick Henrietta from ContraVision |
Starleaton Director Gary Smith, “Roland has really hit the sweet spot with the 64” print & cut XR640 in that superb graphics in up to eight colours and metallic plus white can be printed and contour cut in one pass. With the new nickel-free EcoSol Max2 inks and 21.6 square metres per hour productivity, the Pro4 XR640 is every creative’s dream come true.”
Receiving its World Premiere at PrintCom/VIEE, the SEAL 65EL laminator was demonstrated by John Buitenkamp from SEAL Europe, with five orders confirmed and more to come. Lamination demos were made using a new eco-friendly water-based adhesive lamination film that can even out-perform solvent adhesives.
All the way from Contra Vision’s USA office, came Sales Director Patrick Henrietta who found interest in the new back-of-glass applied Contra Vision Sprint product very high. Released only earlier this year at FESPA, ContraVision Sprint features a re-positionable adhesive enabling simple application and removal of see-through window graphics from the inside of glass. “Interior-applied see-through window graphics mean the glass can be cleaned without damage to the images, without rigging and abseilers on tall buildings and away from graffiti attack,” he said. Sprint’s unique white foam structure eliminates the need for white ink in production and varying light transmission levels are available.
Starleaton’s Queensland Manager Campbell Hughes reported very high interest and a couple of orders for the new Flexa Miura II XY cutter. A new agency for Starleaton, Flexa makes a range of cutters and the Miura comes in 1600mm or 2650mm widths, with rotating blades that cut in both directions. “Automatic X-Y cutting of printed rolls saves an enormous number of man-hours and fiddling with blades and cutting mats, “said Hughes. “The cuts can be adjusted manually, pre-set or by reading crop marks and are very clean and accurate.”
Petra Ziegler visited from 3A Composites, Germany and gave highly competent demonstrations of creative uses of Kapa foam boards. Using a hand V-channel cutter, she was able to produce ‘gallery-wrapped’ and mitred display graphics from a single piece of Kapa. With Ziegler’s know-how and a little ingenuity, visitors came away with a head-full of creative new ideas for Kapa boards.
A welcome sight at the Neschen Erfurt digital wallpaper demonstration was General Manager Ben Eaton donning a work coat and grabbing a glue roller to show how easy it is to hang Neschen Erfurt digitally-printed wallpapers in varying textures. “It’s fantastic what can be achieved for interior décor, murals and graphic panels,” said Eaton, “but so few designers know that their print service provider can produce any customized pattern or image on top-quality wallpaper using their existing equipment.”
Throughout the show’s three days, Starleaton’s back wall graphics were changed regularly by staffers Clayton Scheider and Walter Palombini using Neschen Easy Dot 100 PE removable vinyl films. Even VIEE/PrintCom visitors were invited to have a shot at removing and applying Easy Dot graphics using nothing more than a plastic squeegee. Because of its dot-pattern adhesive, Easy Dot does not retain air and is completely re-positionable.
“It was a sensational show for us,” says Ben Eaton, “the quality of visitors to our stand was very high – mostly business owners, managers and decision-makers. It’s a pity the Sydney show has to move to Homebush due to next year’s re-development of the Darling Harbour complex but we are looking forward to VIEE Melbourne next May where it will be co-located with the Pacprint exhibition. If we get a similar response, it will definitely be worthwhile.”
Starleaton Digital Solutions
www.starleaton.com.au