When Australian retailers need pressure-sensitive labels and other pricing supplies, they immediately turn to Melbourne-based Pricemark-it Products Pty. The converter manufactures a broad range of blank and printed p-s labels in both roll-fed and sheet forms, as well as provides many types of hand-labeling items such as pricing guns, date coders and label applicators.

To keep up with growing demand, Price-mark-it Products recently added a new Vectra ECTR 330 four-spindle, turret rewinder from AB Graphic Intl. (www.abgint.com). The 13-in. web-width system, designed to produce small rolls of labels at high speeds, turns out finished roll diameters from 6 down to 1 in. Initial parent rolls up to 14 in. can be run. Its features include servo-driven, closed-loop tension control; hot-melt core and tail gluing; constant mandrel-end support for small-diameter mandrels down to 0.5 in.; touchscreen controls; and recipe memory for up to 500 different jobs.

Pricemark-it managing director Rodney Boyle first investigated the Vectra ECTR 330 at the Pacprint trade fair in Melbourne last year. Until then, the converter had been unsuccessful in finding a solution for producing small-diameter rolls with the degree of automation required. Successful trials were carried out together with Curries Pty. (AB Graphic's newly appointed distributor for Australia), and installation of the Vectra now means that certain jobs can be sourced in Australia rather than imported.

“The performance of the Vectra ECTR330 during trials closely met our requirements,” Boyle explains, “and we intend using the machine to rewind a range of various label sizes. We chose the Vectra because of its ability to successfully rewind narrow-web labels at high speed and hope to significantly increase our rewinding efficiency as a result.”