At first glance, the tissue box below looks like an ordinary, albeit very well printed, folding carton. But Ashland, WI-based substrate provider Sheer Veneer, Inc., begs to differ. The maker of 100% real-hardwood paper (www.sheerveneer.com) created the package to show how everyday cartons can be turned into high-end specialty products.

Using a proprietary water-based method, Sheer Veneer peels wood as thin as 0.006 in. from logs across a 60-in. web. The resulting roll of wood—up to 1,000 ft long—is then laminated to another substrate for support and use in paperboard packaging, corrugated or labeling.

With a nod toward sustainability, Sheer Veneer is said to be easy on the forest because while traditional paper requires up to four tons of wood to make a single ton of paper, Sheer Veneer material is virtually a 1:1 process. Maple, cherry and birch hardwood papers are available. For the tissue box, cherry veneer was laminated to MeadWestvaco 15-pt C1S paperboard. Converter Outlook Graphics (Neenah, WI) printed the 30 x 40-in. sheets on a 44-in., 6-color Komori sheetfed-offset press with UV capability, before diecutting, folding and gluing the cartons.

Sometimes the simplest solutions can hold the greatest reward.

Take for example a new slitter/rewinder blade guard (at right) from Camas, WA-based Tidland Corp. (www.tidland.com). Designed to be an affordable way to further reduce the likelihood of a slitting injury, the guard acts as an additional barrier between an operator's hand and sharp blades. It is said to easily attach to the company's existing Performance Series knifeholders. Additional material at the front of the knifeholder acts by deflecting the motion of an operator's hand away from the web, thus providing critical reaction time.

“For too long our industry has not paid enough attention to operator safety,” says Peter Wood, Tidland slitting product manager. “Yet, the most valuable asset any corporation has is a healthy, skilled workforce. We're continually looking for innovative, affordable ways to increase the safety of our slitters without compromising cut quality or productivity at the web.”

Begun as a part-time job for three brothers attending college in the early 1970s, the carpet-cleaning business of Robert, Gordon and Dave Hanks has grown into a nationwide company that provides wall-to-wall products for the professional carpet- and upholstery-cleaning industries. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Bridgepoint Systems prides itself on being a prime resource for products, services and education. Now, with its recent move toward printing labels in-house, Bridgepoint joins other businesses doing some of their own package converting rather than buying from outside vendors.

Last March, the company installed a 4-color digital label printer (at right), the Vivo! from QuickLabel® Systems (www.quicklabel.com) to provide photo-quality labels, printed and applied on-demand and onsite. Bridgepoint had relied on an outside source to supply 2-color screen-printed containers for its vast array of short-run chemical products—a solution that sorely limited the company's speed-to-market and design flexibility, not to mention tying up tons of warehouse space.

Today, the packager prints up to 3,000 pressure-sensitive paper labels a day—some up to 18 in. long—in 600-dpi resolution on gloss-coated stock. Turned loose with 4-color design capabilities, Bridgepoint has done an overhaul of the labeling for all its 1-gal chemical bottles. The Vivo! is paying for itself within “months,” says Bridgepoint director of manufacturing Scot Greeno.