Flexographic Trade Services Showcases Open House
FORT MILL, SC—January 24, 2013—Flexographic Trade Services held its two-day Open House event at its facility here earlier this month, which included more than 20 table-top displays from many of the industry's leading suppliers, the majority of which have been vendor sponsors since the trade school was established in 2000.
Art Fields, founder and President of FTS, started the event by announcing that the school was again accepting students for their three-month flexo press operator course, and would be holding its popular two day intro to flexo and intro to Prepress courses starting this month. All potential students are put through a rigorous evaluation and mechanical aptitude test that must be passed before they can be considered for any of FTS' programs. In the last decade FTS has been able to put several hundred graduates into good paying jobs throughout the flexo industry and in several cases has even been instrumental to helping many set up their own business in the narrow web market.
Fields explained that for the past year he and his team plus several key vendors had been involved in the design and build of the industry's most advanced operator and owner friendly narrow web flexo press, the Legacy LG10. Fields further explained that a separate company had been formed called Legacy Press Company LLC, and in keeping with the FTS rules had become a vendor sponsor of the school with the installation of its first LG10 8 color press complete with sheeter, laminator, turn-bar, waste wind up, die section conveyor.
Fields also announced that the first LG13, eight-color 13˝ Legacy press was also in the process of being built and had been purchased by Subtle Impressions based in Gastonia, SC. All visitors to the event were given a tour of Legacy's design, fabrication and assembly partner Dynamic Design Solutions based literally on the same street as FTS. As Art put it, "when you suddenly discover that you have such a company capable of providing everything you need to build a complete press right on your doorstep then you know it was meant to be."
He then introduced some of the key vendors that had partnered with Legacy Press Company in building the first and all future Legacy presses which included Craig Thomson of Martin Automatic, Derek Bradshaw of Aztech Converting, Mark Hahn of AAA Press, Wolfgang of Boge Compressed Air Systems, David Fleming of Kocher + Beck and finally Legacy's lead engineer Andy Kunik. All expressed their excitement about being involved with one of the most versatile yet simple to use and maintain presses that they had ever seen and were all looking forward to working to continuing provide a range of unique solutions for the Legacy family of presses which would include the LG10,LG13 AND LG13F film press.
On display at the school were products from AAA Press, Acucote, Air Trim, Allison Systems, Boge Compressors, Environmental Inks, FLXON, Harper Corporation, JM Heaford, KLaser, Kocher + Beck, Lohmann Tapes, Luminite, Martin Automatic, Matthias Paper, Pitman, The Flexo Factor and Wikoff Color. Dupont not only exhibited their product's but were able to give live demonstrations of their thermoflex plate making exposure unit as well as Esko's Spark CDI system that they have provided for use by the school's students during their training programs.
During the event the LG10 press was run continuously showing off its hot air, UV IR drying, slitting, sheeting, die cutting and re-registration capabilities. This included a seven-color die cut label, 5-color die cut school calendar that all printed in perfect registration which was further proved when Chris Averitt, FTS School program director and trainer, was able to run the same job through a second time and re-register the final color to the previously printed job. The LG10's most unique modular feature was also demonstrated in being able to take out complete print and die sections and place in different positions, which was not only simple to do but was accomplished in less than 15min per station. This was done in full view of the more than 100 visitors and to everyone's amazement proved for the first time that being able to re-configure a press can be done in real time without the need for sophisticated software and servo technology and by personnel with minimal experience or mechanical skills.
All consumable components for the press are readily available from most local hardware or on-line stores and as was demonstrated at the show only requires a hand full of tools due to its simple design and unique features. All exhibitors expressed their satisfaction in being able to display and discuss their products and services in such an intimate environment as did the many converters and printers that attended the show from all over North America.
Source: FTS.
