Capture Signs on Epson and Fujifilm

Owners Nigel Rook, Grant McCaskie and Andy Brown employ around 21 staff at the 26-year old sign shop, which keeps the Epson machine busy all day. Rook says, “It runs for seven to eight hours per day and sometimes overnight, so it can be running 14 hours in a day.

“We absolutely love it. It is much more user friendly than the machine it replaced. We see it as a time-efficient and cost-efficient machine.

The SureColor SC-S80600 works with an expanded ink set that includes additional light cyan, light magenta, light black, orange and a new red. The 9c ink set has an unlaminated outdoor lightfastness rating of three years and is nickel free with a low VOC for minimum odour. Capture Signs makes good use of the optional white to print on to clear and backing for window graphics.

He says, “We have just completed some jobs where we have printed window graphics on to both sides for the print. Before we got the Epson, we simply could not do that, so we couldn’t have a print showing on the outside of the window; one side was print and one side was glue.

“How we achieve it is that we print on to normal clear and then we can print it in reverse on the back side of the window. On the file, we place a dot for that so it comes out looking like a window double-sided.

“We kind of came across this ourselves. We had wondered how to achieve a certain print we were working on. Fujifilm had shown us a few things we could do but we thought maybe we could go further try this and, hey, it worked. We did not know we could complete that job. We thought we would have to outsource it but doing the job in house has saved the outsourcing. In fact, we used to have to outsource all of our white printing and we now do it all in house.

“Some of the outsourcing of white prints on to clear vinyl could only be done on flatbed printers but we can do this now straight off the roll and we are not limited to any size which is pretty cool.

Quality printing

Epson’s SureColor SC-S80600 printer uses new Eco-Solvent UltraChrome GS3 ink, which features a revised formulation with significantly increased gloss levels for superior punch and has increased pigment density for brighter prints with reduced consumption. It hits 98 per cent of Pantone colours.

He says, “The print quality has improved over the previous machine. The colours are more vibrant and the fine details is greatly improved. This is a machine that you can get down to the really fine detail.”

“The Epson is also a lot quieter than the old machine and just the efficiency of the cleaning processes and the actual working of the machine saves us quite a few hours over the week.”

Capture Signs focuses on signage and completes work for the trade as well. He says, “For signage, there isn’t much we don’t do. We have our own routers, lasers, and paint booths so we can complete building signage, vehicle wraps, store displays, 3D signage and LED signage. We print and apply vehicle wrapping. It used to be the odd company had vehicle signage but now they realise their vehicle is actually a moving billboard. About 90 per cent of our work is vehicles and buildings.

“We enjoy the variety of work we get. We have done everything from wrapping toilets on the Tongariro Crossing to airplane signage as well as multi-storey buildings, and everything in between. We provide a nationwide service and we partner with other companies in different parts of the country.

“For future growth, we discuss what we can do as a company but, without wanting to sound big headed, we are good at what we do and we won’t compromise on the quality of our work for anything.

“For trade work, we are prepared to listen to any printers who need work done. We have the expertise to make the signs and, most importantly, we know how to get the signs up there.

The company enjoys its relationship with Fujifilm. He says, “We could not be happier with Fujifilm. The backup service and support has been absolutely fantastic. Any queries we have had, if they haven’t known the answer, they have done everything they can to help us find a solution. It really has gone without a hitch.”

Fujifilm supplies the Epson SureColor SC-S80600 with an extended Epson Coverplus warranty (three years, with an option to increase to five years from purchase date). Fujifilm says this gives complete peace of mind for not only parts but service time included.