Embossing on a Heidelberg s cylinder press.

You probably can, but embossing is best when you have heat. The heat helps form the paper to the emboss. I don’t think you can use precast counters because those are made for platen presses…I don’t think they would be flexible enough to wrap around the cylinder. Ideally you would need to lock some honeycomb in your chase to mount the female die to. You will probably get cutting, because of the lack of heat. It will be hard to spot patch on a cylinder press. I operate a 40 inch miller major (old printer converted to diecutting), and it doesn’t always hit the matrix when scoring exactly,. so I have to use a 50 or 60 matrix instead of a 40, especially when the crease is running across the cylinder to make up for this (it gives it some play room). Do you have a platen press such as a kluge, geitz, or bobst that you could run this job on? If not you could send it to me and I will emboss it for you. What is the paper and image size? Have you ever embossed before? Embossing does take a different skill set than printing or diecutting.

The Heidelberg manuals definitely show methods of embossing, but using hand-cut counters (strawboard, blotter, etc.). And heating units were used as well. There were even foil-pullers made for the Heidelberg line of cutters-and-creasers, as they were called.
As for the problem Miller, is the misregister in any specific direction? If is is head to tail, you should adjust or remake the register rack, if side to side then the bed gibs would be suspect. Unless the whole press is worn out, there should be some control over bed-to-cylinder register.

I have done several embossing jobs on cylinder, mostly at room temp. Brass dies are more forgiving than copper but cost more. Also have die etched or milled no deeper than .020” Universal Engraving in Kansas and E C Schultz in Illinois both make .015” counters for use on cylinders and art files can be e mailed to either. If counter is not available or still cuts, then you may hand cut using soft board double face taped to the cylinder. The die has to be at type high, uncounted .250” is what I use, on sterling toggle base but obviously other systems work as well. Don’t forget to remove your die cutting jacket or you will have used a very expensive 1 off die. Stuart

Hi all,
Thanks for the advice.

regards
Art.