PRODUCT OF THE WEEK: Duplo DC-445 DuCreaser

摘要

Duplo goes for broad appeal with its fast, competitively priced, feature-rich digital creaser. It's probably about 10 years ago now that the print industry first discovered that the average digitally-printed sheet cracks when it's folded. Made brittle by the pressure and heat of the toner fusing process, the paper fibres don't retain the elasticity of offset-printed equivalents, and when subjected to the stress of folding, they simply break, leaving an ugly white gash down the fold-line and making the document itself weaker as a result. In the late 1990s, UK manufacturer Morgana discovered that if the sheet was creased -that is, pre-stressed - before folding, the fibres didn't crack. With the launch of its Autocreaser at Drupa 2000, Morgana not only provided a much-needed solution for digital printers, but also proved the market was ripe for other manufacturers to tackle. Which, of course, they have in abundance. The latest addition to the array of digital creasers available on the market is Duplo's DC-445, a standalone wheel-up matrix creaser with a good range of features at a competitive price.