Any such device as a glosser that would apply a gloss finish to variable data color laser-printed pieces to attain a look close to a gloss uv or aqueous coated conventionally printed offset piece?

Kodak's Nexpress NexGlosser seems to be technology addressing the request for perfectly even high(er) gloss laser printed pieces; I don't have a price on it but suspect it may be quite an expensive way to go.

It appears both vistaprint and 4over.com have the capability to gloss coat a variable data short-run print (with white text knocked out of a photograph background, not a two-part process) -- presumably these are laser printed pieces (unless they're line inkjet printed from an indigo for example, but I don't think so) I would be very interested if anyone knows what equipment they are using to gloss these variable data pieces.

that varstar looks like a fantastic machine. unfortunately it's $195,000.00.
anything comparable? preferably with spot-coating capabilities?

Same reaction here after getting a quote (I wasn't sure if the quote was in USD or Canadian, but either way, it's a lot) - it looks like a very nice machine, but I don't have the volume or additional revenue from applying a nicer finish to afford that. I'm wondering if using an older model press and researching how different traditional offset coatings might apply over toner is the more economical path to follow.

Also have not recieved a quote yet for a NexGlosser -- I suspect this will be more affordable actually, but still quite expensive and I'm not sure about how the NexGlosser's operating cost per piece would compare.

i really don't know a lot about UV at this point. we recently got a xerox docucolor so i know we can't do aqueous with the toner-based ink. we're capable of varnishing jobs but it's just too much of a pain for short runs, which is what we're doing a lot of. we run a lot of club flyers and would get more jobs in if we had a UV machine. xerox told us that they have paper that is comparable to UV coating. yeah, right. we could outsource but our competition provides UV at no additional charge so that would hurt the bottom line. currently, a lot of the club flyers are adorned with spot-coating as well. this would really run up costs since we'd have to go back to the negative and plate method....

Forgive my ignorance -- I come from digital only printing 25,000/month on canon equipment but having outsorced all color offset work to date.

What do you consider too short a run for varnishing? Is it a no-go because of your desire to spot coat only, or also in the setup/cleanup/or simple running of flood/continuous varnishing? I was thinking of acquiring and adapting an older machine to 'varnish on the cheap' as suggested here:
http://boardserver.superstats.com/re...&f=1&u=ru1fus1 for our runs of 500-1400 of each sheet.

K2 makes a uv coater -- their Digicoater -- that is an adapted ABDick press with exit conveyor and uv dryer for $31,000 that they say is used extensively to gloss coat xerox ouput. www.k2systemsgroup.com

Attached Files

K2SG-NEW-Digicoater.pdf (177.4 KB, 37 views)

I heard that k2 was out of business; I also heard that the Varstar unit sells for as little as $150,000 for digital output

I just got three emails back from k2 -- they seem very responsive to questions so I don't think they're out of business...

The Varstar looks like an awesome machine, but you need some serious volume to pay for $150,000 for a glossing-only unit. For that amount of money we could buy a used Heidelberg with inline coating...

(edit: fall 2007 - it appears I was mistaken re: k2 )