A Highly Automated and Versatile Cutter and Creaser

As digital print has made ever-shorter run lengths practical and cost-efficient, right down to the run-of-one, the suppliers of finishing kit have had to adapt to keep up. Ten minutes spent setting up a die-cutter that’s then going to run for hours, stamping out thousands – or tens of thousands – of items seems a reasonable trade-off, but makes no sense at all if each five-minute job needs a different die, even if you have the dies already made.

The same arguments apply to perforating, creasing, and folding, so it’s no surprise that the main thrust of development among the finishing suppliers in the last decade or so has been towards greater automation and flexibility, from job set-up to tool selection to material feeding in and out. This is very much the case at Plockmatic, which bought UK-based Intec in 2022, merged it with Morgana at the start of 2025, and since the start of 2026 has retained both as brands within Plockmatic UK.

Poole-based Intec (as was) has had a series of offerings in the B2+ multifinisher space, starting with the FB8000 which offered two passive tools, and then became the FB9000 after a couple of iterations, and then the FB9500, gaining a tangential wheel in addition to the passive cutting tools. Formally launched at FESPA in 2026, the latest incarnation, the Morgana FB9550 Pro-T, supersedes all of them by combining five tools – two tangential and three passive – into one unit that also has a sophisticated automatic feeder and a novel registration system for cutting one-sided print from the back.

The FB9550 is therefore able to handle a wide range of media and print types, from kiss-cutting self-adhesive labels (in sheet form, not continuous) via the usual range of commercial substrates to cutting, creasing, and debossing various packaging and signage/display materials up to 3mm thick, including fluted types E, F, G, and N.

Media up to 530 x 740mm can be fed automatically, though manual placement allows larger sheets up to 550 x 850mm to be processed. It’s held in place by a two-zone vacuum system, on a felt cutting underlay belt which is user-replaceable. Job recognition via QR code for cutting path and tool parameter loading, as well as registration are all handled via a high-speed CCD camera. The tangential tools include interchangeable creasing wheels, a blade holder for a 5mm blade, and a perforation wheel.

Contour and drag cutting tools include a crease ball and a blade holder for a variety of cutting blades. On the right media – thick enough and soft enough – the crease ball can be used to create debossing effects in addition to the usual creases of various widths. Tool pressure and cutting force of up to 2.5kg can be applied for tools 1 and 2 and up to 1.3kg for tool 3.

Not Cutting Blind

A neat feature that marketing manager for the Plockmatic Packaging and Labelling Business Unit, Terri Winstanley, highlights, is that the device’s rear scanning system has been patented and is therefore unique to Plockmatic. This allows single-sided print such as cartons or table display items that need to be cut from the back (unprinted side) to be registered accurately without requiring any extra registration marks to be added on the reverse.

It works via a rear bar scanning unit located between the feeder and the belt cutting area, reading the registration marks from the front of the face-down sheet as it passes over. Two sets of marks are read, along the leading and trailing edges, which enables accurate positioning, also allowing for any skew or stretch in the print. For fluted materials and some of the heavier boards that might be used for packaging or point-of-sale (POS) items, the cut or fold from the back provides a better finish, but having to add extra marks just for cutting is an extra prepress and production step and one which potentially introduces its own registration issues.

Winstanley explains: “This enables users to choose to crease into a fold or away from the crease fold, perfect for users of fluted materials where this feature is critical.” This should simplify the production of high quality inner and outer boxes for limited run, or personalised luxury items, while the FB9550 can also cut the labels that might adorn the items inside.

The 2,200-sheet feeder is unusually well specified for a digital cutter and creaser. Rather than a pick-up-and-drag system, it uses a separate vacuum finger delivery function similar to that found on presses. It also has some more sophisticated sheet separation features, which Plockmatic claims ensure ‘the best unattended feeding on the market’.

These include air separation, steel separating fingers, and adjustable vacuum pick up, plus a sheet vibration/jog function which is customisable for both time and length. There is also a reverse arc function, a further jog/shake function, and a gravity restack while feeding forwards. Winstanley describes the combined effect of these features as “an insanely reliable feed for unattended operation”.

Cutting and tool parameters are set by the included ColorCut software, which as the name implies, uses colour coded vector paths in a separate layer in the PDF artwork to control creasing, debossing, perforation, and cutting operations. ColorCut works as a plug-in to Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw software, and the files it creates are handled consistently right across the Intec/Morgana range, so that a template designed for a humbler member of the family can be run without alteration on the FB9550 or anything in between.

For those who expect to put a lot of different jobs through their FB9550 there is a dedicated ColorCut Pro Server workstation which adds software for template creation and editing via Illustrator or Corel, and a job library manager that allows specific parameters to be assigned to individual QR codes or job numbers, as well as providing the usual file management tools.

The FB9550 is available to order now, priced at £12,499 plus VAT, delivery, installation, and training. The ColorCut Pro Server is a further £1,599. While the machine is too new to have built up much of an installed base, Winstanley reports considerable interest and pre-orders from the FESPA launch, and notes that collectively Intec, Morgana, and Plockmatic has sold thousands of its predecessors. So, if a machine that can carry out most of the common finishing operations, including digital die-cutting, in a highly automated way, across a wide range of printed products and materials, seems like an appealing idea – check it out.

Statistics

Maximum Format: B2+ up to 550 x 850mm
Media Thickness: Up to 3mm
Number Tools: Five – two tangential, three passive
Cutting/Creasing Speed: 750 – 1,200mm/s
Feeder Capacity: Up to 2,200 sheets