Firehouse Image Center, a leading printing business with operations in the USA and Europe, has switched from OEM inks to third party inks for its Vutek QS-series UV flatbed printer. The switchover has enabled the company to achieve better quality colour on its output, reduce downtime relating to purges and ultimately make cost savings of between 25% and 40% on ink and has been described by Firehouse as being almost “too good to be true.”
Firehouse Image Center celebrates its 40th year in business on 1st September 2011. With one printing facility in Indianapolis, the USA, and another in the Netherlands, the organisation serves the commercial sector and offers photo prints and backlits, POP and trade show graphics, banners and finishing and fulfilment services. It also has an inventory of printing and mounting materials in stock available for purchase and serves markets throughout the USA and Europe.
Spread across its two printing facilities, Firehouse has five Lambda photo printers, a Durst 350 roll-to-roll printer, 3 large Vutek UV-curing printers (including one flatbed), six HP wide format printers and over 30 Epson large format printers.
In February 2011, Firehouse became convinced that there were savings to be made by adopting third party inks for its Vutek QS-series flatbed UV printer. Terry Corman, CEO of Firehouse, had become convinced that third party ink manufacturers would take an enormous share of the UV curable ink business. When UV curable inks were initially introduced, printing businesses were concerned that sacrifices would have to be made in terms of colour vibrancy and print quality. However, this has not proved to be the case and a new generation of UV-curable inks that offers a true alternative to solvent inks – whilst minimising negative effects – is now available.
He comments, “The price of solvent inks dropped to a very low multiple of their original selling prices and I knew that the same would happen to UV inks. I went looking for the best third party ink manufacturer I could find. On the recommendation of a customer of mine, I met up with Stephen Mills from Ink Mill. Following discussions and demonstrations, we selected the company’s UV curable inks as they were able to offer the best coverage, required the fewest purges and created the most saturated colours of any of the inks I reviewed.”
Ink Mill Corporation, based in New Hampshire, USA, offers best-in-class ink solutions for inkjet applications including solvent, UV curable and bio-solvent based inks. The company also offers a range of pre- and post-coatings for digital ink applications.
He adds, “To my mind, this switch was more of an upgrade since the colour was so much better and the problems with the machine far fewer – I believe Ink Mill makes the best ink product on the market for Vutek UV printers.”
Stephen J. Mills, President of Ink Mill Corp., assured Firehouse that the transition from OEM to third party inks would be straightforward and painless and indeed it proved to be so. Ink Mill’s technicians did an analysis of Firehouse’s machines and worked with the company on the switchover until the results were – in Terry Corman’s own words - “too good to be true.”
“We get much better coverage and use far less ink than previously. Our machines suffer much less downtime and the third party ink prices are lower,” says Terry Corman. “We are in the middle of a very extensive and exacting costing of Ink Mill ink versus our OEM supplier and we are seeing preliminary results showing cost savings of between 25 to 40 percent, depending on the job.”
Stephen Mills adds, “Terry and his team at Firehouse Image Center have put tons of effort into calculating true ink costs. Not only is the Ink Mill QS ink able to achieve better colour and better performance, it is also more stable and able to run with less purging and ink wastage."
Terry Corman concludes, "We will be talking to Ink Mill about switching over our Durst 350 printer to the Ink Mill inks in the near future as well.”
Firehouse’s business is thriving. It plans to add a Durst 900 flatbed UV curing printer to its US facility in the next few months along with a Vutek 3200 flatbed UV curing printer and a second Lambda photo printer to the arsenal of printers at its European operation.
