West Sussex-based sign, display, and promotion company BEL Signs has praised the impact of its new VeloBlade Nexus 2516 wide-format digital die cutter, revealing how it has been able to significantly speed up production since taking delivery of the machine from Soyang earlier this year.
Located in Horsham, BEL Signs delivers a wide range of products and services to customers across Sussex and Surrey. The company works with clients such as local authorities and councils, schools, colleges, retail and manufacturing companies, charities, and sports, social and leisure clubs on a variety of projects, ranging from signage and vehicle graphics to branded clothing and traditional signwriting.
With such a diverse offering, BEL Signs is committed to regularly updating its production equipment to ensure it can make use of the latest developments and new technologies. This approach led it to identify the need to enhance its finishing setup, with the company’s existing cutting machine in need of being replaced.
Having looked at several options on the market, the BEL Signs team opted for the VeloBlade Nexus 2516, which is manufactured by Vivid Laminating Technologies and sold through Soyang Hardware as an approved distribution partner.
Featuring a bed size of 2,500mm x 1,600mm, the cutter, combined with CNC router, allows users to work with stocks up to 25mm in thickness, including key sign-making materials such as Dibond, MDF and acrylic. Stand-out features on the machine include automatic cut depth setting and tool change, making production easier for the user, as well as the ability to cut, crease and perf in a single pass, helping speed up production.
Faster production has been one of the major benefits BEL Signs has noted since it installed its new machine in spring this year. Managing Director Peter Bedford said the flexibility of the cutter has also allowed the company to experiment with packaging work, with the idea of growing its already-expansive offering.
“We have certainly been able to speed up all of our finishing,” Peter said. “We can now take on quick turnaround orders that include large amounts of cutting and still do them at a sensible cost. For one example, we processed an order of over 500 large posters in less than two-and-a-half hours, which really pleased our customer.
“The work we are running is very varied, ranging from posters to thick and thin foamex, graphics and even plywood. But we are on a learning curve every week we find something we can develop. In fact, we are experimenting with short-run packaging, which is another reason we chose the machine as Vivid has a great history with that.”
