label product

Record sales month for hot melt adhesive coating module for printing presses

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Universal Converting Equipment sold six HMCS 420’s during November 2011, a modular device that enables hot melt adhesive coating capability to be added to print presses and other web fed processes.

Touch screen HMI

The Universal HMCS 420 allows printers to coat hot melt adhesive in-line on their print presses, enabling them to service customers requiring adhesive coating without incurring the costs associated with installation of a dedicated line. The coating systems are designed to give the same precision of coating normally only achieved on dedicated hot melt coating lines.

The hot melt adhesive can be applied either as a continuous coating, as striped coating or patch coating in registration with the print design. A complete range of hot melt adhesives can be applied including pressure sensitive, heat seal, dry peel and UV curing. Applying adhesive on a press or finishing line allows special products to be manufactured which cannot be produced on standard label stock. End uses have included liner-less labels, security labels, promotional labels and fold out labels. Several high profile labelling companies were among the recent orders and interest in this innovative product continues to grow.

“The secret to high quality coating is precision positioning of the coating die. Safety regulations restrict access to the coating system when the machine is running. As a result, we have designed a motorised adjusting system so the key settings can be adjusted via the touch screen display. These positions form part of the product recipe and can be recalled at a later date when the product is run again. In essence, we’ve taken the ‘black art’ out of in-line coating while making the process both accurate and flexible.” Explains Managing Director Alan Jones.

The Universal HMCS coating system is available in a number of standard widths. It can also be customised to suit special applications.

Find out more about the HMCS 420…

MACtac U.K. Ltd improve both quality and customer service by installing the latest highly automated X9 Slitter Rewinder from Ipswich based Universal Converting Equipment.

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Universal Converting Equipment have sold a highly automated duplex centre wind Slitter to Bemis group company, MACtac U.K. Ltd for use at their Northampton facility.

MACtac U.K. have a reputation for fast delivery of quality, label product, maintaining this requires periodic investment in emerging technologies.

“When the decision to invest in a new slitter rewinder was taken, our principle considerations were short run productivity and the capability to process label stock and some open adhesive substrates. The Universal X9 with its auto-knife setting, laser core-alignment, auto-roll offloading and automatic tension control (along with the Universal’s experience in handling label stock) made Universal’s X9 a clear contender in our procurement process. The more aspects of the converting process that we can automate, the better service and quality we can offer our customers,” says Rachel Barton of MACtac U.K.

“Working with our sister company Universal Adhesive Systems Limited has given us considerable experience in handling label stock and substrates with open adhesives. We applied our experience to ensure issues surrounding knife cleaning, web-path geometry and roller covering performance were minimised. Also the X9 features closed loop rewind tension (load cells) control as standard, this always gives superior results compares to equipment with open loop control.” says Universal Converting Equipment Technical Director Dave Ward.

The transport that delivered the new Universal X9 also removed the redundant slitter, it was therefore essential that the new slitter was commissioned immediately and without problems. This was achieved and throughout the the commissioning phase not a single scrap roll was produced.