I had a customer ask me today whether or not our foil stamping machines are able to stamp on leather. It told them that our Kwikprint and Howard foil stampers can be used to stamp on leather. There are just a few things you will need to know prior to stamping leather.

As far as machines are concerned, all hot foil stampers that I am aware of are capable of stamping on leather. Not all stamping foil is able to adhere to leather. Be sure the foil you are using is rated to work on leather. Most hot stamping foil, however, is rated to stamp on leather.

What types of leather do most people foil stamp? The most commonly stamped item is leather & hardbound bound books, such as a Bible. People like to add names to the cover of books, including logos. We have even had customers use foil stampers to stamp school years and names onto yearbooks.

I have had customers tell me that they foil stamp text, numbers and lettering on leather keychains, belts and wallets. I’m sure there is more that customers have stamped, but this is what comes to mind.

The best thing about foil stamping machines is that they can also be used to stamp photographs, card stock, napkins, pencils and more.

You can find our entire selection of foil stamping machines here. You can find our foil stamping ribbons and supplies here.

There are copy machines and then there are digital duplicators. While the goal may be the same, both technologies use totally different approaches. I am going to go into a few details on the benefits of each technology. I’ll let you decide which technology is best for you.

To begin with, the supply used to actually print an image is completely different. A copy machine uses toner to create images and text where a digital duplicator uses ink to create an image.

Copy Machines (Xerographic) – A copy machine uses an electrostatically charged cylindrical drum to create images. A bright lamp illuminates the document being copied. White areas of the paper are then illuminated onto the drum. Areas of the drum that are not exposed to light become negatively charged. The toner is positively charged, sticking to the drum. The drum then transfers this image to paper, which is then melted and bonded to the paper.

Digital Duplicators – A digital duplicator also uses a drum as well as a sheet of wax paper-like material called a master. As the document is scanned, tiny holes are burned into the master, creating the image in tiny dots. This master is then wrapped around the drum. Ink is placed inside the drum. As the drum spins, ink seeps out of pores on the drum, which then leak out of the tiny holes burned into the master. This master then rolls over the paper, creating the image.

While these are two fairly simplistic descriptions, you can see that the technologies are very different. The reasons for using one technology over the other varies, depending on what you will be doing.

With digital duplicators, the initial cost of creating a new master costs more than a copy machine, but the costs drops quickly as more copies are made. Since ink costs so much less than toner, you pretty much break even at about 25 copies. Everything after 25 copies then costs far less than a toner-based copy machine.

Copies on a toner-based copy machine (xerox-style) cost about 1.6 to 2 cents a copy. This cost never goes down. Copies on a digital duplicator initially cost slightly more, but with quantity (150 plus copies) the price goes down to as much as 0.004 cents a copy.  Also take into consideration that copy machines make about 35 to 50 copies a minute, where digital duplicators can create about 130 copies a minute.

Ultimately if you plan on creating a few copies here and there, which is a lot of us, a copy machine will cost less to operate. If you plan on creating dozens to hundreds of copies of the same thing, a digital duplicator will cost far less to operate.

You can find our entire selection of Standard digital duplicators here. Do you still have questions about copy machine and digital duplicators? You can read our digital duplicator guide (found here) or speak with one of our duplicating specialists at 1-800-658-8788.

Whether you are working with wedding invitations, printing certificates or need a unique look on your business cards, you may be able to benefit from foil fusing technology. One model that has a great reputation and years of trouble-free use is the Banner American Model 1200 foil fuser. I have used this model for years and this is my review.

Many people confuse foil fusing with foil stamping. I can understand. The end results look very similar, but the process is completely different. Foil fusers (aka color foilers) take metallic foil, of multiple colors, and fuse it to toner. This is the same toner that is used in laser printers and toner-based copy machines.

This means you can print text, a logo or an intricate design and completely fuse it with foil. The end result is foil covered text, logo or design. The foil fuses in a professional way with nice clean edges.

I have personally used the Model 1200 foil fuser to fuse certificates, CD labels and business cards. The Model 1200 can use foil rolls up to11-inches wide, however, eight-inch rolls are more commonly used because they can cover most of an 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper.

Some people have asked me, “What if I don’t want the entire paper foil fused?” This isn’t a problem and there is an easy solution. What you need to do is print what you need foil fused, then fuse the paper and later run it through the printer or copy machine again to add the rest of the text.

The Model 1200 foil fuser can easily be used throughout the day without breaking down or suffering any damage. I have used the foil fuser for eight-hours straight, foil fusing CD labels, and didn’t have any problems.

There are two adjustments that are important for making sure the Model 1200 runs properly. These adjustments are the speed and the temperature, both of which are completely adjustable. If the foil doesn’t seem to be sticking properly, this may indicate the machine is either running too cool or too fast. After a few minor adjustments, the machine is up and ready to go.

The Model 1200 foil fuser is a must-have item if you run a copy shop, a print shop or operate a business making invitations, certificates or cards. I personally really like the machine and am confident that it will provide you with years of trouble-free use.

You can find the Banner American Model 1200 foil fuser here. You can find our entire selection of foil stamping and printing machines here.

If you work for or run a printing press, you know how important it is to tab, organize, batch count and separate print jobs. One machine you may want to consider using is an automatic tabber. One machine designed to help with in-line tab inserting is the Shooter-II press tabber. This is my review.

To begin with, the Shooter-II is designed to be positioned at the delivery end of your equipment. It can deliver tabs into the delivery pile of presses, sheeters, folders and other converting equipment that uses a receding pile delivery system. It can be mounted to the equipment or be used as a stand-alone device.

The Shooter-II counts at speeds equal to the equipment being used at a speed of up to three tabs per second, which is very fast. This helps to increase profits by quickly eliminating overages and shortages with extremely accurate counting at tabbing. The Shooter-II also helps making competitive quotes easier.

So how does the actual counting and tabbing work? The Shooter-II can be set up via a micro switch or by using a universal electronic pick up. An optional Infrared reflective opto sensor can be used, which requires no connection to your equipment.

A few additional features include:

• Total and batch counts
• Variable tape lengths
• Variable knife cut delays
• Back lit LCD display

The Shooter II can also be customized to best suit your application. A few optional customizations include:

• Multiple tabbing heads (up to three)
• A 90-degree angle tape chute
• A swivel bracket mount
• Stagger tabbing
• Additional base stands and swivel mounts
• Custom tape chute lengths
• Infrared reflective opto sensor

Customizations can be built into the Shooter-II in the factory. If any of these customizable options sound like something you need, you can speak with one of our specialists at 1-800-658-8788 and get a quote. Don’t see a customization that you may need? Ask us. We may still be able to build it in at the factory.

Overall the Shooter-II is a durable machine that gets the job done. It is one of the most customizable machines that I have seen and I really like how compatible it is with most machines out there. It is easy to set up and is designed to be used all day long.

You can find the U.S. Paper Counters Shooter-II Press Tabber here. You can find our entire selection of paper counters here and our tabbers here.

So next month I will be celebrating my 10-year wedding anniversary. At 10 years, I can’t help but reflect back on that time prior to getting married. To begin with, my fiancé and I didn’t have a lot of money. I can still remember talking about how we were going to come up with wedding invitations. We had to create hundreds of them, and it wasn’t going to be cheap.

We ended up deciding to make them ourselves. We would potentially save hundreds of dollars. Now I understand not everyone will want to go down this route, but here is what we did.

Thinking back on it now, I can’t help but laugh a little. Many of the machines we used to make our invitations I now help sell through ABC Office.

Materials Used:

• Navy blue card stock
• Linen card stock cover (light tan)
• Velum paper
• 1/4-inch wide ribbon

Equipment Used:

• Single-hole punch
• Stack paper cutter
• Paper folding machine
• High-resolution copy machine

These are the steps we took to create the invitation:

1. First of all, we single-folded the navy blue cardstock in half. We didn’t fold it along the shortest part of the paper, but the longest part of the paper.
2. We then took the light tan linen card stock and printed a picture my father-in-law took with his digital camera along with the wording, location of the reception, etc. We printed (in black & white) two invitations per one-sheet of light card stock. Once printed, we cut the light tan linen card stock on a manual stack cutter down the center of the longest part of the paper.
3. The cut tan card stock now fit nicely into the single-folded navy blue card stock. We were lucky enough to find a copy shop that had a high-resolution copier as well as a paper folder and a stack cutter that they let us use for free.
4. We then went on to cut a bunch of 8 ½ x 11-inch velum paper with the stack paper cutter. Now that everything was folded and cut, we were able to put everything together.
5. We put the velum paper on top of the printed picture and slid it into the navy-blue folded cover. Once we finished this, we single-hole punched the corners of the invitations. My fiancé cut ribbon into four to five-inch lengths that we threaded through the punched corners and then tied. The ribbon helped keep everything together.

The invitations were a hit and we got several compliments from people on how unique they were. I think they meant “unique” in a good way. Sure we saved a lot of money, but I now also have some great memories of making invitations with my wife.

The type of equipment and supplies we used then (that I now help sell) are the stack paper cutters (found here), paper folding machines (found here), single-hole punches (found here) and the card stock (found here).

I hope this helps someone facing a similar situation. Now I need to talk with my wife and see if I can get a picture of the invitations so you can all see what they looked like.

Do you have experiences making your own wedding invitations? Post your comments here!

We recently added the Martin Yale GC210 gutter cut business card cutter to our site. This cutter is the replacement to the Intimus GC208. The GC208 was very popular and we expect the GC210 to be equally popular with our customers. This is because the Martin Yale GC210 is extremely well built. Here are a few of its features.

• It can cut full-bleed business card templates.
• It has durable hardened-steel blades that are self sharpening. No more dull blades!
• It cuts up to 360 cards per minute.
• It includes a CD with business card templates.

These are just a few of the features. One of my favorite features of the GC210 is the included waste bin that holds cut paper particles. If you have ever used a business card cutter, you know how much paper mess they can make.

We are pretty excited about this addition. You can read more about the Martin Yale GC210 business card cutter by going here.

Business card cutters have been around for some time now, both electric and manually-powered versions. Gutter cut business card cutters, however, are relatively new. They are designed to cut business cards in a way that allows for a full bleed print. Full bleed business cards are cards that feature full edge-to-edge color.

What does the gutter cut business card cutter do that a standard business card cutter can’t? Why not use a standard business card cutter for full-bleed prints? First of all, it is difficult to print a full bleed card using a standard business card template. If this were done, business card colors would bleed over in to other cards, ruining them.

Even if the print turned out OK, it would be very difficult to align a standard business card cutter to cut the line straight enough that the full-bleed color from one card, even a sliver, wouldn’t appear on another card. In other words, there would be some fine-tuned alignment issues.

Business card cutters, like the Martin Yale GC210, are designed to cut a gutter cut business card template. This doesn’t mean the GC210 can only cut full-bleed prints. It can also cut out more traditional prints that utilize more white space. The GC210 uses a 10-up cutting pattern, which allows it to cut 10 cards per sheet of paper. You can view the new Martin Yale GC210 business card cutter here.

If you have ever dealt with static electricity in paper, you know how annoying it can be. It causes sheets of paper to stick together and can cause problems / jams when collating paper, folding paper, printing on paper and much more. Is there a good way to get rid of static electricity in paper?

There are a couple of things you can do. One of the best things you can do is use a paper jogger that is designed to cut down on static electricity. Most modern paper joggers will gather the electrical charge and ground it out, all while jogging and squaring up paper. This is one of my preferred ways of cutting down on static charge in paper. You can find our paper joggers here.

Another option for cutting down on jam-causing static electricity is using a static eliminator spray on your collator, folding machine or copier. Static eliminator is sprayed on rubber rollers and other machine components, which dramatically cut down on static electricity. You can find our static eliminator spray here.

Good luck cutting down on static electricity. Do you have some additional ideas that have worked for you? Post them here in a comment!

What is the difference between a foil fuser and a foil stamper? They both create a foiled metallic logos or text. The end results look very similar. So it’s no surprise that many people get confused between the two. Be aware, however, that foil fusers and foil stampers are two very different machines. Be sure you get the right machine for the right job.

Foil fusers are designed almost exclusively to work with paper and cardstock alone. They cannot be used to put foiled lettering on photographs, pencils, matchbooks and other objects. Foil fusers use a special type of foil that literally fuses to toner. Toner is what copy machines and laser printers use. This means everywhere text or images are printed, the foil will stick. Foil fusers will not work with ink or ink jet printers.

Foil stampers, sometimes referred to as hot stamping machines, use a heated aluminum alloy die to stamp text and logos onto leather, cards, photographs, napkins and other solid objects. The foil stamper has a type holder that holds the lettering, the logo or both, after which the machine heats up. The heated lettering, along with pressure from the machine, transfers foil from a roll (usually attached to the machine) to the surface of a different object.

The end results of both foil fusers and foil stampers looks very similar. It is pretty safe to say that if you want foil on paper or card stock, to use a foil fuser. If you need foil on a book, napkin, photograph or other object, use a foil stamper. Be aware that the supplies for foil fusers and stampers are not interchangeable.

You can find our foil fusers and stampers by going here. Have more questions about foil stampers or fusers? Write a comment and I will post an answer.

Why use a paper counter? Is it really that hard to count paper? These are a few of the questions that come up with the topic of paper counters is brought up to those unfamiliar with the printing industry. I can understand why these questions are asked.

What many people don’t realize is that the printing industry deals with thousands of sheets of paper on a daily basis. The slightest inconsistency or inaccuracy, even being off just a few percentage points, can cost a business a lot of money. Paper counters not only save time, but are extremely accurate too.

We have a created a paper counter guide designed not just to help the general public, but printers as well. This guide covers common questions such as “Why should I consider investing money in a paper counter?” and “Can your paper counters batch tab, and if so, how fast?” Answers to these questions, and more, will help you determine if you can benefit from using a paper counter.

You can find our new paper counter and batch tabber guide here. You can also find our entire selection of paper counters here.