To make digital books, you’ve got to be able to finish them. Nessan Cleary looks at what’s available in binding equipment for short run and/or variable formats.   One way to grow a digital print business is to find new applications that are best suited to digital production. But new applications usually mean investing in new finishing kit, so it’s best to be sure that there are a range of applications to fill the capacity of that kit.

Book production is proving to be one way of doing that. Recently photo books have been a huge growth area, as Andy Pike, marketing manager for Duplo, point out. But he says that customers then use the same equipment to bind theses for students, as well as financial documents and corporate reports. ‘A lot of people use them for presentation folders where before they used ring binders, because it’s affordable now and it gives you a much more professional look,’ he says.

And then of course there are more conventional, text-led books, with many digital printers offering to produce everything from on-demand novels to educational texts. In truth though, much of this work still tends to be handled by dedicated book printers.

The main item of book finishing kit is the binder, with a choice between perfect binding and saddle stitching, and for hard and soft covers. For short run or on-demand digital printing, most people opt for perfect binding with soft covers.

A key trend in perfect binding is towards the greater use of PUR glues compared to the traditional hot melt EVA option. PUR is very pliable, and less of it is required on the backbone, which results in a neater finish on the spine with no glue seepage. It works well with coated papers and the oil-heavy toners used by some digital presses.

Ray Hillhouse, sales manager for Morgana, says that PUR gives a much more secure finish: ‘With digital, if you have toner printed right into the spine, and especially if there’s fuser oil, this can sometimes compromise the strength of hot melt. But with PUR the glue will cure and get stronger over 24 hours. I would imagine that this wouldn’t be any different for inkjet or HP Indigo.’

On top of this, PUR glue is also easier to recycle as it’s easier to remove it from the paper fibres during the flotation process thanks to its inherent rigidity after curing.

However, PUR binding does require more sensitive handling and good spine preparation as well as scrupulous cleaning of the kit at the end of a shift. Alan Harrison, technical director at Intelligent Finishing Systems, says that PUR glue machines cost more: ‘PUR is more expensive because the rollers have to be Teflon coated so you can’t scratch it. The coating on the rollers prevents the glue from sticking to the rollers.’

Some customers do opt for saddle stitching. Mr Harrison says that it depends on the thickness of the book, the number of pages and the run length. He adds: ‘Saddle stitching is not so much for one-off books unless there’s a personalised cover. Generally variable data is done with perfect binding.’

What’s available?

Leaving aside the very high-end book lines designed to complement offset production or high-speed inkjet printers (where overall volumes are high even if individual titles don’t run to many copies), there’s quite a wide choice of perfect binders targeted at the short run digital print market.

More expensive systems tend to have more automation, and may include useful features such as creasing but the are plenty of budget options as well.

Intelligent Finishing Systems sells the Japanese Horizon range, including the new BQ160, which comes with a choice of EVA or PUR gluing. Besides perfect binding it can also handle liner binding for casing in. It’s a single clamp machine designed mainly for the entry-level on-demand market.

There’s also a BQ270V, another single clamp system, but which has a built in calliper to measure the next book block as the book in production is cycling, which it enables it to cope with different sizes of books from 1 to 50 mm. Harrison says that because the covers are the same size per cycle, most people tend to batch work of the same thickness together.

There’s also a BQ470 for higher productivity, which has a four-clamp binder and can run at 1350 cycles per hour. This takes books up to 65 mm thick and up to 301 x 310 mm. Horizon also sells larger machines with up to nine clamps but they tend to be used with offset rather than digital production because of the higher run lengths.

For saddlestitching IFS sells the Horizon StitchLiner, which converts flat-sheet 4-page sections into genuine saddlestitched and 3-knife trimmed books in one pass, without pre-trimming or pre-folding. It can produce 11,000 books per hour from a two-up sheet. Options include sheet/set feeding, 6-page software, barcode and CCD camera integrity systems and sheet insertion.

Duplo also has a number of perfect binders starting with the DB280, a semi-automatic desktop machine that can produce up to 200 books per hour. It takes soft covers up to 250 g/m2 and book blocks up to 40 mm thick and up to 320 x 400 mm.

Then there’s the DPB-500, a single-clamp machine that can produce up to 525 cycles per hour but is really designed for short run on-demand work. It’s designed to be simple to use, with a touch screen set-up so that operators can quickly change from one format to another, with a 30 second automatic set-up cycle. It’s available in both hot melt and PUR versions.

Friedheim sells the Italian Tecnograf range. This includes the ANT250 which can handle up to 250 cycles per hour and starts at around £35,000. As with most binders at this price point, it’s a single clamp machine. But it does have dual glue tanks thanks to a patented nozzle system that can handle both PUR and hot melt glues so you have a very quick changeover from one glue to the other.

It can have a dual spine preparation station that in turn can lead to stronger and more flexible bindings. You can also buy it without a cover feeder, which can substantially reduce the price. Sales manager Roger Cartwright explains: ‘At that end of the market where people have one or two books in a run you often find that you have to hand feed the cover to the machine so that makes the whole process of automatic cover feeding a mockery.’ He adds that you do need somewhere for offline creasing, which many people have.

It’s also fully adjustable from one book block to the next from five to 30 mm. Mr Cartwright adds: ‘The clamper measures the thickness as it clamps each section and that sends those measurements to the rest of the machine for nipping, gluing and so on.’

Tecnograf has a larger six clamp machine, called the ANT 2000, which starts at around £130,000. It’s available with single or dual glue tanks. Mr Cartwright says that in the UK Friedheim sells it with the optional second spine preparation station: ‘It’s not massively expensive and the UK market is well developed. The main issue is not the cost, but making space on the machine.’

Tecnograf makes the Mini Tec entry-level range of free standing machines for each of the casing in processes, such as head and tail binding, rounding and backing, casing in and case making. These are mainly for hand feeding very short runs but they can be integrated into Tecnograf’s automated casing in lines, the Easy Tower and Tower Plus.

Tecnograf also makes a useful machine for end sheets, called the Pronto. Mr Cartwright explains: ‘It uses a strip of gauze linen that glues an end sheet to both sides of itself so that you have a book cover with gauze down the middle and an end sheet on either side. You can then send this through a cover feeder to attach it to a book block.’

Friedheim also distributes the Wohlenberg range, which includes the Quickbinder, although this is mainly aimed at the sort of longer runs associated with offset production. Morgana sells two perfect binders. The KB2000s is a hot melt model capable of producing around 200 books per hour.

It’s a fairly basic machine but at £10,900 it’s keenly priced. The DigiBook 300 is Morgana’s main offering in this sector. This costs around £40,000 to £50,000, depending on configuration. It runs at 300 cycles per hour and can produce around 200 books per hour. It’s a PUR machine, with an integral glue tank.

Mr Hillhouse says that the glue is pushed out through a very fine nozzle, adding: ‘It’s designed for short run so it’s easy to maintain with less than 10 minutes shut down and automatic cleaning of the nozzles.’

It comes with a book thickness detector which will adjust the PUR nozzles and pressing station according to the thickness of the book block. It takes book blocks up to 50mm thick, from 100 mm up to 450 mm along the spine. Its manual cover insertion means that you will also need a creaser, as perfect binding works best with a sharp well-defined spine. However, Morgana is planning to launch a new machine in time for Drupa. This DigiBook 450 will have an automatic cover feeder and so this will include creasing.

Watkiss recently launched a new semi-automatic perfect binder which it says is targeted at short run applications. The 420PUR has a closed glue tank which recirculates the glue to prevent it from clogging. The tank is split in four parts which are maintained at different temperatures. It runs at 450 cycles per hour, which equates to around 260 books. It takes books with a spine length up to 420 mm and up to 50 mm thick. Book blocks and covers are manually loaded but the clamp automatically adjusts to the book thickness and a photo sensor sets the spine dimensions for gluing.

Perfect Bindery Solutions sells the Bufalo 500, a perfect binder from the Swiss manufacturer W Gantenbein. It can produce up to 500 books per hour, though there’s also a faster version running up to 1600 books per hour. The 500 version can also be modified to take A3 landscape and larger book blocks. It can be configured to use hot melt, PUR or PVA glues.

For longer run jobs PBS sells the German KM40 from DGR, designed specifically for short run book production. This runs at 40 books per minute and can handle formats from 120 x 100 mm up to 420 x 300 mm. Rather than using a conventional mechanical clamp system, the book block is gripped and moved through the machine for notching and milling before the glue is applied. There’s an optional barcode reader for fairly fast format changes.

There’s a choice of PVA, PUR or hot melt glues and it can produce flush books, book blocks ready for casing in or even cheque books and notepads. This can also bind the end papers inline.

Müller Martini has several solutions for book production, though mainly aimed at the high production end of the market for dedicated book printers. These include the Pantera perfect binder which runs at up to 4000 cycles per hour and handles books up to 50 mm thick.

Muller Martini had also developed the SigmaLine, a fully integrated book production line capable of running inline with an inkjet press. It can take a printed web, sheet it and fold it, then either perfect bind or saddle stitch the book. One of these is running at Clays in Suffolk, originally with a Kodak Versamark VL, which has now been replaced by a Prosper 1000 monochrome inkjet.

Muller Martini also sells the MC Diamant bookline family for hard cover production. This includes a hybrid version, capable of dealing with both offset and digital run lengths. It’s available in two versions, producing up to 35 or 60 cycles per minute but always runs at 30 cycles per minute in digital mode to give it time to adjust for minor variations in thickness between books.

Conclusion

Many printers currently outsource some of their finishing but those companies that have invested in a perfect binder have done to bring the work back in-house with both cost savings and faster turnaround. Most people will also need some kind of trimmer to complete the line, which most of the vendors mentioned here also sell.

Contacts Duplo: www.duplouk.com Friedheim: www.friedheim.co.uk Intelligent Finishing Systems: www.ifsl.uk.com Morgana: www.morgana.co.uk Müller Martini: www.mullermartini.com/gb Perfect Bindery Solutions: www.binderysolutions.co.uk Watkiss Automation: www.watkiss.com