Nuova Gidue launches Master Combat at open house

At an open house in Florence, Italy, Nuova Gidue demonstrated the latest press in its Combat flexo line, the Master Combat. The press was shown alongside a redesigned Xpannd combination offset-flexo press. Nuova Gidue reports that visitors came from around the world to see the new machine.

The Master Combat 430 on display was a 9-color machine printing on unsupported BOPP and on a clear-on clear PET. The label was designed to be technically challenging, matching a high quality process job printed on the adhesive, with opaque printing on the face.

The job was slit and inspected on a Prati Jupiter inspection machine using a BST Shark 100% inspection system. A Smag Galaxie silkscreen press added a final decoration layer to the label, with washing equipment demonstrated by FlexoWash. The project was jointly developed with Nuovo Gidue by NuMaber, Grafica Panciroli, Bottcher, Kodak, Kurz and Flint.

On the Xpannd offset combination press, meanwhile, an unsupported 38 micron BOPP film was printed using a demanding sheetfed offset test form.

Italian converter Nuceria Adesivi will be the first to install the new Master Combat. ‘We “blind” ordered the Master Combat some months ago because we trusted the Gidue technology,’ said plant manager Guido Iannone. ‘But the machine we discovered surprised us completely. We are very proud to be the very first Master user in the market.’

Peter Tanner from Graphicon AG, the new distributor for German speaking countries, was equally enthusiastic:  ‘I expected some steps forward from the past Gidue technology. The Master Combat is not only that. It is truly a new milestone in our industry.’

Eddie Gulmen distributes the Gidue technology in Australia. ‘I made a 24 hours trip to be at the open house, and I am happy. We are back into our position of leadership in technology. I will immediately send pictures of the machine to my customers and invite them to see it. The Master Combat is a “must see” now, if you want to buy a press for the label and packaging industry.’

Federico d’Annunzio, managing director of Nuova Gidue, commented: ‘At the open house we could finalize many sales which we had been preparing for the past months. We have nearly completed our budget of sales for 2010, and we are only in April. I believe the quality of our distributors worldwide made the biggest part of it. But I also believe that the Master Combat is such an evident breakthrough in our industry that some sales came in just from the quality of the machine.’

The open house program was completed by a well-attended seminar on digital workflow in pre-press held by EskoArtwork and Kodak. 

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