“In addition to shortening the prepress process significantly, laser-etched cliches will speed up registration for multiple-color pad printing jobs,” says Julian Joffe, president of Pad Print Machinery of Vermont, about the company’s new Rapid Fire Cliche Maker. The benchtop-sized system comes with its own PC, and it uses a 10-watt CO2 laser to etch polymer pad-printing plates to a depth of 18-60 microns. PPMOV says the 0.0001-in. (0.0025-mm) dot size the device produces yields extremely fine lines and details, including halftones and four-color-process cliches. The Rapid Fire Cliché Maker can operate at speeds up to 45 in./sec. Pad Print Machinery of Vermont, 201 Tennis Way, PO Box 720, East Dorset, VT 05253, 802-362-0844, 800-272-7764, fax: 802-362-0858, Web: www.padprintmachinery.com.