Thought I would share a great article on the state of the paper industry as it affects everyone involved with print.
It was sent out by one of our owners to all managers at our company this morning,
it is attached here. I copied the text from the email into an InDesign file and exported a PDF.
I suggest you read it...at least the first half of it.
I know we are struggling with paper daily and i'm sure everyone who visits this forum is aware of the seriousness of this problem.
Thanks, solid read on the "Why" of printing right now...
I have seen this a HELL OF A LOT in the past 6 months and it still scares me:
"Fussy buyers have lowered their paper standards, accepting lesser grades in order to meet deadlines. "
We have had to sell lesser paper options to several of our customers over the past year who only use Glatfelter for the guts of their books...just can't get it or if you can not as much as you need and not quickly enough.
We are spending significant time educating our customers on the issues with paper.
Most of them are aware by now....but they still want their jobs when they want them..LOL.
We are having that problem plus with all other substrates. We're buying anything we can or if it's too expensive, turning down jobs. You should see the garbage metal that came in. We ordered 50 sheets (4' x 8') of a 3m aluminum composite. I used it yesterday and the thickness varies throughout the boards in a wave form. You can see and feel it. I print to it anyway and laminated it, there are stripes of air pockets in the laminate because of the variation in thickness.
Some metals we simply can't get anymore. Like the blanks that are predrilled and round cornered already. Some of those sizes aren't available so we have to throw the job on a 4' x 8' sheets and router them instead. Lot of time and waste material.
We always got Gillman Brothers Foamboard by cases of 25. They stopped selling it. Gave us garbage that you can't cut without snagging the inside foam. Even oscillating blade tears the shit out of it and it doesn't matter whether its a new or used blade. We sent it back and get a different brand. Same thing. We found 2 skids of 100 qty 4' x 8' sheets of Gillman from another supplier so we bought both them and we're getting down to the end and have to find them again. We had to rearrange the entire shop to store this stuff. They act like no one else is having a problem with the materials but I don't buy it.
Quote from: Skryber on June 09, 2022, 09:55:46 AMGave us garbage that you can't cut without snagging the inside foam. Even oscillating blade tears the shit out of it and it doesn't matter whether its a new or used blade.
I have been having same problem. Not sure of supplier here in Australia, but my workaround is to use a flat cutter rather than the upright one and make multiple shallow passes through the foam board. Generally solves the problem.
Bigger issue for me is the sheets of corflute. They are shaped like bananas at the moment, with the leading edge cut at an angle that is not 90° to the side as well. This causes any cuts over around the 1000mm range to angle across the channels multiple times, leaving a very messy edge. It's a 💩 product at the best of times, this just makes it worse.
Quote from: madbugger on June 09, 2022, 02:02:06 PMQuote from: Skryber on June 09, 2022, 09:55:46 AMGave us garbage that you can't cut without snagging the inside foam. Even oscillating blade tears the shit out of it and it doesn't matter whether its a new or used blade.
I have been having same problem. Not sure of supplier here in Australia, but my workaround is to use a flat cutter rather than the upright one and make multiple shallow passes through the foam board. Generally solves the problem.
Bigger issue for me is the sheets of corflute. They are shaped like bananas at the moment, with the leading edge cut at an angle that is not 90° to the side as well. This causes any cuts over around the 1000mm range to angle across the channels multiple times, leaving a very messy edge. It's a 💩 product at the best of times, this just makes it worse.
We would be here for days if we made cuts like that. Our supplier actually gave us a "how to cut" directions sheet for the foam board and it was ludicrous. You have to use certain blades at certain angles. (It didn't work anyway.) We couldn't use the Fletcher. Doesn't solve the problem that we use a Colex for most cuts so contour cuts were out of the question.
ALL of our coroplast sheets look like bananas. Our supplier charges about double for boards they call "straight cut" and even those aren't square. I made a cut template for a common size we print (24" x 18") and throw those on the Colex. And I have a way of lining it up on the flatbed. Works very well. Are you hand cutting your boards?
How's the paper supply in Australia going? It's really strange times over here, as you can see from the posts above.
In honor of such craziness, I started searching for a better supplier of my favorite breakfast cereal - either: Weet-Bix, Vita Brits or Weetabix (damn Poms!) ... looks like I'm about to start importing Weetabix it from the UK through Ebay, at $6/box with shipping, I'm cool with that.
Amazon prime won't be getting that money from me any more!
I'm a sucker for Aldi's Shredded Wheat. I was doing so well with the low carb thing until I discovered those.
My weakness is Kelloggs Froot Loops, though since they went artificial color and flavour free they don't taste like they used to. ;D
If I'm honest, I haven't met a cereal I didn't like. My before bedtime snack. Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds.
Now I'm hungry.
We have 2 cutters, both older models of these 2.
ST250 and E3BT360
SteelTrak-Dimensions-Chart-3.jpgBenchTop-Dimensions-Chart-2.jpg
I use the upright one for Comp Panel and am using the desktop one mainly for banners, canvas, etc. I do find the desktop one more accurate for doing corflutes, foam board etc and as we don't have large quantities to do, the extra time is not really an issue.
We have an Anapurna M2 hybrid machine, so the position on substrate can be all over the place compared to dedicated flatbed stuff.
They are a pretty poor compromise to having seperate dedicated flatbed and roll printers, but when space is an issue they kinda do the job.
Quote from: Foozball on June 09, 2022, 02:53:37 PMHow's the paper supply in Australia going? It's really strange times over here, as you can see from the posts above.
Yeah, struggle here too. I don't think we have any manufacturing onshore any more :'( :'(, it's all imported.
That in itself becomes problematic for supply, let alone with all the issues Covid has thrown up. Just getting a halfway reliable transport company is next to impossible atm.
Yeah, I can't do sugar for breakfast, if I do I end up craving it horribly later in the day.
Back in the day I worked out 5 days a week, in the gym at the print plant on the way to work afternoon shift, and was mostly fueled by wheat cereal, like a LOT of cereal ... there were often bets on my appetite.
One week I forgot my cereal and bought some kind of Honey O's ... I then ate a family-size block of Cadbury Chocolate every night, sugar crashes were horrible when you have an 11pm edition deadline!
Quote from: madbugger on June 09, 2022, 03:24:23 PMWe have 2 cutters, both older models of these 2.
ST250 and E3BT360
SteelTrak-Dimensions-Chart-3.jpgBenchTop-Dimensions-Chart-2.jpg
I use the upright one for Comp Panel and am using the desktop one mainly for banners, canvas, etc. I do find the desktop one more accurate for doing corflutes, foam board etc and as we don't have large quantities to do, the extra time is not really an issue.
We have an Anapurna M2 hybrid machine, so the position on substrate can be all over the place compared to dedicated flatbed stuff.
They are a pretty poor compromise to having seperate dedicated flatbed and roll printers, but when space is an issue they kinda do the job.
I have never used one of those desktop cutters we use a straight edge and a box cutter. But we have one of those uprights, I think ours is a bit larger. We can cut 66". I have to stand on top of it and let my weight bring down the metal cutting wheel bc I'm too weak. Do I need more Wheaties?
Our upright is a Fletcher. It sucks for Ultraboard and Gatorboard. It leaves a wavy edge on the styrene surfaces. I used to hand cut those until we got the Colex.
Quote from: Skryber on June 09, 2022, 09:55:46 AMGave us garbage that you can't cut without snagging the inside foam. Even oscillating blade tears the shit out of it and it doesn't matter whether its a new or used blade.
So that's why I felt so Christmassy at the cutter yesterday :D
A winter wonderland :P
When I was working in the sign shop, we inspected every delivery and rejected inferior materials immediately. Not sure what they're doing now... seems like you have to take what you can get lately, and more waste.
Interesting times ... In the past 5 years I've heard "Yes, we'll pay the extra!" maybe once a year.
In the last few months - it's become an every week occurrence!
Just sayin...
We (almost) had a regular client balk at a weekly job that runs on the offset press, over a $100 increase. They had about 30 minutes to decide, cause the Press Op was going on vacation for the next 2 days & that was his last job before he hit the door. It ran.
I'm not sure how many jobs we're losing due to increases (of everything across the board) but we seem busy as normal, maybe moreso.
If they are balking at $100 now and print is integral to their business ... they're dead, they just don't know it. :o
We once lost a customer because we charged them an extra $12 for having to replace fonts in their Pagemaker document after at least a dozen warnings about their font issues every time they sent something in. Best thing that ever happened to us.
We just had our best year ever last year and are off to a fast start this year and just overloaded with work.
We have about a dozen new customers mostly due to their normal vendors not being able to make due dates or more often not able to obtain paper to make any reasonable due date.
We have increased pricing on everything...paper, ink, coating etc...the work keeps coming.
Our owners have excellent credit and are in excellent standing with our paper vendors and that has paid off huge dividends as far as getting paper they have or are about to have. As it is well known by now if you were one to not pay your paper bills then you are now at the bottom of their list to sell to.
We had people who balked at a modest price increase after paying the same thing for over two years.
Then there was the major manufacturing company that had us print their instruction sheets that said it was printed on recycled paper. It wasn't. They wouldn't pay for recycled paper.
Then they moved their printing to Mexico. I still get steamed over NAFTA.
Rumour is one of our printers just backed out of servicing our orders ... a few MM cartons now need to be re-sourced.
If those smaller (annoying) customers use paperboard they're in for a rough one.
I'm in for a hell of an August!! >:D
Not your problem. You're not the one who's supposed to get customers.