Cold Foil

Cold foiling is a method of foil printing without heat and is now commonly used in the label printing industry on rotary printing presses, mostly as an inline process. There are sheet-fed units available however these are far less common and there are presently none in New Zealand and very few in Australia.
Cold foil does not carry a layer of heat-activated adhesive to bond with a substrate like hot foil. On a rotary printing machine cold foil is placed on top of a wet UV curable adhesive that has been laid down on a non-porous substrate as an image of where you want the foil to adhere by way of a printing plate as you would an ink colour. The web with the foil laying on it then passes under a nip roller and an Ultra Violet light which passes through the foil and cures the adhesive instantly. The foil roll is then peeled away leaving a foiled image. All this happens in a very short space and often at high speed.

Cold foiling is an economic alternative to hot foiling as there are no costly dies involved allowing a foil embellishment to be an affordable option even on shorter runs where costs are more concentrated.

Techspan’s range of cold foil can be applied to a blank or printed surface and can be over-printed allowing the designer or brand owner a variety of exciting options when creating their label.