Mr. Guillaume Clement, Vice President Global Narrow Web of Flint Group states, “We are extremely pleased to globally launch the DigiCoat HP UV varnish range. We know from discussions with our converter base that UV varnishes to enhance digital printed substrates are significantly important to them. With the introduction of these innovative UV varnishes Flint Group takes a vital step into the digital print arena to address a critical aspect of the printing process.”

Mr Clement concludes, “The great news is that we have developed three varnishes which give very good adhesion to un-corona treated digital print, as well as on corona treated digital print, which is of course the recommendation by HP.  However, we know that not all printers have the ability to do this today thus our varnishes open up great new opportunities for the industry.”

“The DigiCoat HP range is far from ‘just another UV varnish range’,” declares Mr. Par Olsson, Product Manager Narrow Web EMEA.  “The Flint Group motto is ‘Rely on us’ – and in this case we wanted to develop coatings that fully match the most stringent resistance demands.  After extensive testing and simulations in our own laboratories, we submitted three types of varnishes into the HP Indigo Labels & Packaging Overprint Varnish Performance Program at Rochester Institute of Technology.”

Mr Olsson elaborates on testing procedure, “The varnishes underwent a full baseline test, which is the most rigorous testing in the program. They performed very well achieving very good adhesion, excellent scuff, scratch, and abrasion resistance. The test printers we have used in the BETA process are extremely pleased with the fact that the varnishes give excellent protection to the digital printed image, both with and without the use of corona treatment on the digital print itself. “

Keith Redmond, DigiCoat Project Manager at Flint Group, comments, “The challenge to develop a gloss thermal transfer over-pintable varnish, achieving excellent over-printability with VIP (variable information print) , whilst at the same time, give very good adhesion and abrasion resistance properties on the digital print, was especially challenging.  However, this was what was requested by many digital printers and we are very happy to have developed a product that has performed exceptionally well in the testing.”

Mr. Redmond continues, “The matt high scuff varnish is also a product which we has been asked for many times by wine label converters because of the sometimes challenging paper substrates used in that sector. Our product is also performing exceptionally well in this application.”

As a result of the positive tests results, Flint Group Narrow Web now becomes an officially recommend supplier of OPV's for use on HP Indigo's digital printed media for the self-adhesive label and packaging sector and is listed as such on the ‘My HP Indigo’ customer portal web page.