Johansson of Reklamidé in Sweden comments: “That was easier said than done. In those days, everything was done by hand. We rented a school sports hall where we spread out the materials on the floor, measured and cut the material and applied it with soapy water and hand-held squeegees. It was heavy, time consuming work, and there was the impending risk of not meeting our deadline.”

The inventor and sign-maker watched the operation as the sign-makers worked away in the sports hall and thought there had to be a better way of making the signs. Scribbling notes he came up with a solution: a table with a traverse beam and a roller would make it much easier to apply material to the underlying surface. In short it was the proto- flatbed applicator.

He comments: “We had limited resources, so I decided to build one myself. We bought steel from a scrapyard and a roller from an old paper machine. I made my first flatbed applicator in a week.”

Reklamidé could turn around work faster leading to a boost in sales and the invention of the Rolls Roller flatbed applicator which was patented and has now sold in its thousands around the world.

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