Eagle Systems Highlights Cold Foiling at PRINTING United Expo

By Kalie VanDewater

At PRINTING United Expo in Atlanta, Georgia, from Oct. 18-20, Eagle Systems displayed some of the products its Eco Eagle cold foiling system is capable of creating.

“Let’s say you’re walking down an aisle. I always walk down the aisle and something always catches my eye, and it's usually foil, something that's on the package is foil,” says Ellen Manning, vice president of marketing and sales at Ocean, New Jersey-based Eagle Systems. “They say if you take it off the wall or you take it off the shelf, and you hold onto it for more than three minutes, you bought it. That's what this product does: It makes people notice the product that the brand is trying to sell.”

To get that result with the Eco Eagle system, all a printer needs is one printing press.

“First you put down glue with a plate, just like you want to put down ink,” Manning explains. “But instead you're putting down glue. On the second tower, our machine rolls the foil down, the foil sticks to the glue and peels off the backing, leaving just the foil. Then they overprint with ink. It's always silver, but you can change the color of the foil with ink — all in one process.”

The Eco Eagle system uses the first two towers of a press to lay down the foil, so Manning recommends using a press with at least six colors. The system can be installed in two days to work with sheetfed offset presses, such as those from Koenig & Bauer AG, Heidelberg, and other manufacturers.

There are several benefits to using cold foiling over traditional hot foiling methods. One of the biggest advantages is its efficiency.

Manning says hot foil stamping “doesn't work as fast, and today's packaging could go 20,000 sheets an hour. Hot foil can only do I think 3,000 sheets. That's time consuming. This is just run by the guy who runs the press.”

The bottom line for those looking to print packaging solutions? “You want to get into packaging, you need foil,” Manning says.