Finishing is no longer the Cinderella of print, with digital technology and automation now prominent in helping printers turn work around faster and more efficiently. Simon Eccles looks at what’s been happening in binding for digital recently.
A quarter century has passed since digital presses gave the old, slow, mechanical makereadies of finishing a kick up the pants, with their demands for short runs and fast turnround, with no significant waste sheets to aid make-ready. No longer is finishing the outdated ‘Cinderella of print’. The best of it is an exciting blend of mechanical and electronic automation that adds sellable value to raw print coming off the presses.
Inline finishing on digital presses
Most digital toner presses offer a decent choice of inline document binding options, from simple staplers though to booklet makers, saddle stitchers (sometimes with square back forming) and occasionally perfect binders. They have got a lot going for them in terms of ease of set-up and use, automation and savings on labour handling and floor space. If you are producing fairly standardised products on a fast turnround basis, inline is attractive.
General commercial printers tend to favour the flexibility of nearline finishers that can be shared between several presses.
CP Bourg offers inline finishing systems (such as the BM-e Booklet Maker, BDF-e Bourg Document Finisher, and BB3002 Perfect Binder) that can also accept stacks from other printers via its clever Bourg Sheet Feeder, giving the best of inline and nearline.
Toner press makers will usually offer some finishers of their own manufacture and a few units from third party specialists. Konica Minolta, unusually, developed its own inline perfect binder some years ago.
After Plockmatic acquired Morgana in 2013 it divided its product line between inline systems, which are labelled Plockmatic, and nearline, which are Morgana. Slightly complicating the Plockmatic-Morgana separation, you can’t a VFX document feeder to some of the Plockmatics so they can run as standalones.
Some of the booklet makers are developments of the PowerSquare models from Watkiss Automation, which Plockmatic acquired in 2018 and now offers inline or nearline configurations. The square back system forms square spines on saddle stitched books, allowing them to stack at or align neatly on a bookshelf, with at space for labels on wraparound covers.
Similar spine-forming stitchers are available from other manufacturers, some licensed from Plockmatic, others developed separately.
Perfect binders
The high-end, high-volume end of the binding machinery sector has been shaken up several times in recent years by the Swiss manufacturer Muller Martini. In 2018 it took over its German competitor Kolbus’ highly-regarded digital book product lines, leaving Kolbus to concentrate on box making equipment.
Late in 2023, Muller Martini acquired Hunkeler, a fellow Swiss company that specialises in paper handling for roll fed digital presses, but with some inline and offline book systems. Its digital press finishing offerings include lines for glued block making for perfect binding (or left loose for sewing), as well as saddle stitching.
Muller Martini itself pioneered production of high-volume book blocks from digital web presses, with its SigmaLine at Drupa 2000. The current SigmaLine III handles webs of 572, 762 or 1067mm at up to 305m/min, thanks to fast air blade technology. For lower volume needs, SigmaLine Compact takes 572mm webs and produces up to 200m/min. Both can handle variable data and books of one.
Muller Martini’s most recent binder launches are Vareo Pro (compact, 1350 cycles per hour, new PUR nozzle technology and hotmelt spine roller, for medium runs down to single copies); and Antaro Digital (2000 cycles/hr, inline/ nearline, highly automated, compatible with InniTrim robot for Smart Factory production), both shown at drupa.
Duplo image evolution 184pp A5 square spined booklets
Another Muller Martini 2023 acquisition was German manufacturer DGR Graphic, maker of the versatile KM 41 fully automatic binding line, for gathered loose sheets, folded sheets or thread-sewn blocks. It can apply soft or hard covers or create lay at photobooks.
Hunkeler’s former long-term UK distributor Friedheim International is now taking on the Tecnau distributorship from Intelligent Finishing Systems, although IFS will still offer Tecnau products for Horizon finishing machinery.
Since its acquisition of Lasermax Roll Systems, Tecnau has offered similar products to Hunkeler, mostly producing book blocks ready for binding, but including the Libra 800 ‘book of one’ system with PUR or hotmelt gluing for inline or nearline working. It can apply soft covers with optional aps, or output blocks for hard cover casing-in.
Horizon, distributed by IFS in the UK, makes a range of perfect binders, most suited to digital work. The BQ-160PUR is suited to ultra-short runs like photo books up to 350(H)x300(W)mm at up to 150cycles/hr; the BQ-280PUR is faster at up to 500cycles/hr for books up to 385x320mm (bar code reading and a cover ap unit are options); the BQ 270V features a digital calliper measure to transfer book block thickness to the binder for alterations on-the-y for books up to 320x320mm and 500 cycles/hr; and then there are two highly automated iCE models, the iCE BQ-300 launched at drupa 2024 and four-clamp iCE BQ-500 (for books up to 320x670mm). These feature iCE Link, Horizon’s cloud-based JDF work ow and job management, for a claimed 50% make-ready time saving and automated book thickness adjustments.
Perfect Bindery Solutions (PBS) is UK agent for Digibook Technology’s Germany built MitaBind Pro (originally made by Risetec). The single clamp model integrates end papering, backlining and cover feeder options. A pair of three knife trimmer options can run inline or offline.
PBS also sells the Smyth range of automated sewing systems for book blocks destined for hard covers, especially photobooks and art books that may need long lives. The fully automatic Smyth DX 70 Book Finishing Line feeds, collates and sews signatures from four-page digitally printed sheets, to create sewn books. DX 70 Plus incorporates buckle folding and cross knife to produce sections inline before sewing.
Morgana sells three PUR binders, the DigiBook 200, 300XL Pro and 450 (numbers indicating books per hour). The 300XL and 450 have milling and notching wheels that retract to accept thread sewn sections. Another model, EvaBind Plus (with hot melt glue), is offered as ‘a quick, compact and easy to use’ perfect binder for short to medium runs of digital sheets and throughputs up to 240 books per hour.
CP Bourg’s current BB3002 fect biPerfect Binder offers EVA or PUR gluing and majors on user-friendliness, thanks to its touch screen and optional bar code reader. It can run in line with a digital printer and sheet preparation units to form the Bourg Book Factory, with automatic integration with block pages after reading bar codes from manually loaded covers.
If a BSF Sheet Feeder is run inline it can also accept stacks from other printers. An inline Bourg Preparation Module (BPM) can accept larger sheet sizes and trim them down; and a second BPM inline can give four-up impositions. Throughput is 600 cycles or about 400 books per hour. Encore Machinery distributes CP Bourg in the UK.
Booklet makers and saddle stitchers
Duplo’s DBM-350 with DSF-2200 sheet feeder
Both Duplo and Morgana/Plockmatic have healthy choices of booklet makers. Duplo starts with the very compact DBM-150 (for 2400 booklets/hr), then the mid-range DBM-350 (3000 booklets/hr, more formats and a square spine module) and the top DBM-700 (5600 booklets/hr, more formats, four stitches, three knife trimming with two-knife two-up potential).
The high-end Duplo iSaddle 5 saddle stitcher document maker was introduced in 2022. The optional DKTS-200 three and ve knife trimmers, allow two-up layouts of smaller books.
At drupa last year a new flagship, iSaddle Senshi was introduced as a beefed-up model for at-to-finished booklets up to 120pp (80gsm), heavy-duty stitching, significantly reduced makeready times, increased productivity, end-to-end automation, plus intelligence to handle lots of short-run jobs.
Morgana has a range of nine different pro level booklet makers, plus a small desktop model. Highlights include the 1500 booklets/hr BM4035e/BM4050e, which can feed 620mm ‘long A3’ to produce A4 landscape booklets as well as more normal A3 to portrait format. The BM5035S/5050S also takes long sheets and offers four stitching heads (BM5050S) as options, for two-up production. It can have a 5400 sheet VFX dual-bin feeder with barcode reader, and a square back unit. There are also four PowerSquare models developed from the Watkiss range.
Horizon’s iCE Stitchliner V saddle stitcher is a high end, 6000 books per hour model that can run inline with a digital web press, or take pre-printed rolls up to 610mm width. The sheet fed equivalent is the iCE Stitchliner IV. For lower volume needs Horizon offers SPF-200L/FC-200L, an automatic stitch/fold and trim booklet making system, with a HOF-400 digital sheet feeder.
For saddle stitching, Primera Pro is Muller Martini’s largest-scale machine (14,000 cycles/hr). It can also work from a reel as a hybrid solution. Muller Martini’s Prinova Digital (9000 cycles/hr) is a fully automated ‘entry level’ hybrid saddle stitcher for both digital and litho print, running 9000 cycles/hour.
UK based IBIS specialises in its Smart binder for digital print, a modular saddle stitcher with a unique option (on the SB-3, SB-4 and SB-5) to apply glue dots on the folds instead of wire stitches, to make finished booklets, or sections for later perfect binding. The SB-4 and SB-5 models have an in-line PB-1500W perfect binder to handle both saddle-bound booklets up to 10mm thick and perfect-bound books up to 70mm thick, with either hot-melt EVA or PUR glue.
The SB-2, 3, 4 or 5 models take continuous feeds at speeds up to 180 metres/min (590 feet/min), or can have a sheet pile feeder for 400 sheets/min. SB-1 is designed to run in-line with slower cut sheet printers.
