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Ways to Print Envelope Flaps

Copyright Thomas P. Crouser, November 27, 1995

A printer had written: We have a Toko 4700 offset press. We re looking for advice on printing on the flaps of (usually) announcement size (A or Baronial) envelopes. We do not have an envelope feeder, so we re using the normal Toko 4700 feed arrangement. It s similar to many other direct feed presses (no register table).

Here are some of your responses:

I seem to remember an item in the Printer s Shopper for assisting the feeding of remittance type envelopes. It might bear a try. We don t have this problem with our A B Dick presses. Sometimes not-as-good is better....


Try running the envelope flaps closed, flaps to right, but run them about 1/2 or so off-center so that they are positioned with w/one of the pick-up feet on the edge of the envelope where the flap meets the envelope itself. The pick-up foot holds the flap closed until is is fed into the gripper. Works for us.


Flap closed, flap-side up, top first; increase vaccum and table height. Flaps open; use smaller stacks, maybe 50 at time. Also put a piece of masking Tape on the impression cylinder where your imprint falls to build up this area. Then you can reduce pressure and not smash as many blankets.


My suggestion??? Find someone in town who can run them and let him. Mark it up and just don t deal with the headache. - Does that sound like an ostrich with his head in the sand? Somethings are better left for someone else to fight with. just a thought.....


Although all of our presses are of the regester board design, and we have little or no problems printing on the flaps of both square-flap and V-flap enevlopes, it sound like the remittance envelope feeder attachement that we purchased from Printer s Shopper (Chula Vista, Ca.) would work the best. It is an L-shapped bracket with steps every one inch or so. When printing flap-open envelopes, you stack the feeder with 500 envelopes and use this device as the back-stop. You rest about 50 flaps on each step, thus keeping the pile level at any point in the stack.




Tom, we run a lot of these for a well known trade printer. Using a Multilith 1218, made by TOKO and similar to the press you described. Most often a simple solution works well---feed the flap end first, slightly off center to accomodate sucker placement. Remove the sheet separater, and turn off all the but two suckers, placing them on the edges of the flap (where the envelope and flap meet), picking up both the flap and the envelope at the same time. Remove the sheet separator because that is what bends the flaps open..

If for some reason that doesn t work we can usually get the job done by doing this: Flap closed, flap up and against right side guide (springs on this side). Envelope is positioned under centr of two suckers with right sucker (flap side) about half on and half off the edge of the flap. Remove the sheet seperator on the flap side, because this sheet seperator bends the flap open and buckles the envelope allowing the flap to be lifted instead of the envelope.

Extremely rarely, but occasionally necessary, open the flaps and trail the flap into the press. Shingle some chipboard on feed table to approximate the any shift in the stack. The problem with this is that only about 100 envelopes can be placed in the feeder and of course all the labor opening and closing the flaps. This is the preferred method though if you are printing onto the flap and the front of the envelope at the same time.

We ve struggled with this problem and these ideas work well for us....Gary


Our new pressman has had experience on a Toko press and agrees with the 2nd suggestion made by JOE PRINT. Open flaps and keep the stack small to deal with the diffferent levels of paper. He also agrees with the reduced pressure. The masking tape on the impression cylinder is new to him and he ll keep that in mind. We have a Hamada & a Itek so we ll see what happens when we have our turn in the barrel. Looking forward to seeing you on Nov 17. Carol Clark


Tom, on AB Dick 9850 s we tend to open flap of EPS (usually against the side of a table - it s faster) and feed none flap side towards press, envelope down (glue down). We use a couple of rubberbands on the tail guide to press down since the flaps do not sit up as high and we feed stacks of about 200 - 250 at a time....Joel


And there you have it, once again. Advice from the experts. Do you have a problem we can pose to our experts? If so, message me by clicking here now, TomCrouser@aol.com. And a special thanks to our many fine experts who have taken the time to respond.

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