Maumee, Ohio-based CGS Imaging, a full-service digital printing and graphics manufacturer specializing in wide-format and grand-format imaging applications, announces it was the first in North America to purchase a Swedish-basedRollsRoller flatbed applicator with a heated roller.

Chuck Stranc, president and CEO of CGS, says a client came to his company with a unique challenge: it wanted high-quality, backlit, flex-face signs printed with multi-layer inks onto flexible substrates.

“The Challenge we are having with the end product,” Stranc recalls, “is that it needed to have a vinyl laminate applied, so that there would be a long-term warranted sign solution. The UV inks provided an excellent color solution; however, when over-laminate was applied, there were thousands of microscopic air bubbles known as silvering.”

Then at a trade show late last year in Atlanta, Stranc says he met with Joe Cutrone, North American sales manager for RollsRoller. After watching a demo of the product, he and his team realized that the RollsRoller machine would be an excellent addition to their shop. However, Stranc says, his company needed a machine with a heated roller, because the heated roller reduces or eliminates most of the silvering from UV ink.

He was told that such a machine was being tested in Europe but had not yet been introduced in North America. After he told Cutrone that if he could arrange for a machine to be sent to his shop in Ohio he would buy one immediately. Cutrone made that happen.

“So far, with the testing we have done, at 50(°C.) temperature, the machine puts down the clear over-laminate on the flex face material, and reduces most if not all of the silvering effect,” Stranc says. “We are very pleased with the product, and all the other mounting benefits are a plus for our company.”

Along with the new RollsRoller machine, CGS’s other equipment includes EFI and HP printers, an ATC coating machine, andZund, Fotoba and MultiCam cutters.