Inline score and fold

[bhm8hwcm]

I presently run an older stahl 49 folder and do relatively basic folding on it. For what I paid for it on ebay a couple of years back it does a great job and has been a money maker. 20 years ago I ran a folder quite a bit so I do consider myself to be a fairly proficient operator.

One think I do not do on the folder is inline scoring and folding (aside from a basic 8pg). I get a number of heavier coverage trifold brochures etc and would like to score first and then fold using the right angle. Due to the age of my present folder I do not do this as I can not get proper consistent pressure for quality scoring out of the delivery for single sheets (not folded).

I am thinking about buying a much newer folder to do inline scoring to minimize cracking but I do not recall how great of a job this does on heavy solids. What are other people doing? Are people offline scoring (I do now on a rollem) and then folding or are you getting good results with inline scoring and folding.

Should I invest in a better folder for inline or stick with offline scoring? As a note, my concern is for offset jobs and not digital.

thanks.

[Al Ferrari]

You should invest some time researching the Tricreaser by Technifold: Technifold USA - The Worldwide Leader in Bindery Solutions.

I think UpDate, https://updateltd.com/ also has a competitive product. What is new about this approach is that a relatively soft male "blade" is used against a hard female grove, and there are several with/depth choices for both the male and female parts.

I do not have this, but wish I did. Let us know if you decide to go this route and how it works out for you.

Al

[nhprinter]

Technifold works great for us.

[halmac]

You should check out Morgana Digifold. We have a Morgana folder and a Morgana scoring machine. There is a scoring/folding machine too (Digifold). They are British made and run on 220, unfortunately. There is also an Italian made machine that does both up and down scoring in a single pass.

[Treg]

Technifold has greatly improved our scoring and slitting abilities on our MBO'S. It will never do what a letterpress score can do but for 90% of your everyday score and fold jobs it works great!

[ondemandbindery]

You have a lot to consider with this situation. And only you know your market and what you do. I think the first question I have for you is how often would you need to score jobs in a given day? The second is what are your run lenghts? And the third is what projects are you missing out on because you do not have scoring capability? All of these devices discussed are great and I use some of them and have seen them in action. However, I also used "old school" for scoring on folders prior to the new technology and you would never know the difference. You have to look at the ROI really. The worst thing you have going for you are the small diameter rollers in the folder but you can still get great work off of them. Just keep in mind you will not match letterpress quality. With offset work and not working in Digital you can cut some corners but you should also think about when Digital will impact your market. What you have working for you is some seat time operating folders.

John Weaver

[ben082010]

I've recently purchased the a tri creaser from technifold but am running into a problem with cracking on 80lb text weights. For 100lb text and up so far has been great, however the 80lb which I run a lot of does not work. I actually run into a problem of the sheet splitting. Either we are running too much pressure and the sheet splits or I'm not running enough pressure and cannot get a decent score. We run 100% UV with full coverage.

[Al Ferrari]

If you purchased that tri creaser recently, then you should have access to Technifold support. What do they have to say?

[ondemandbindery]

Let me get to my PC in the morning and I will try to help you. Tell me about your folder and if you are using the devices on the knife shafts? Also, keep in my Technifold is good with problem solving but your problem may not be related to the scoring system and I hope you were not oversold on realistic expectations with lighter stocks.

[ondemandbindery]

Ok. There seems at times to be frustrations with these scoring devices and who gets the blame for bad scoring. Scoring any type of lighter weight stock with a rotary score is a challenge. I use to score and fold a project for a Printer that used a double hit black on 80lb text (offset respectively). Scoring it just did not have the impact they were expecting at the end of the day. I even letterpress scored it one time and there was a slight improvement but certainly not worth the additional cost of paying for a clunky letterpress to run sheets through it. At the end of the day we just made sure the folding was grain correct and let it eat. The customer loved and never knew the difference between the 2 processes. Now the Morgana or any type of knife scoring system may have the market fix for this but I do not have a definitive answer on that. So with that all being said, a lot of the reduced scoring qualities may be the machine andnot the scoring devices.

By nature, the male score is going to look for the least amount of resistance. Just like a storm running down a river it wants the easy way out . I hope that makes sense. If you have worn and tired shafts, shaft ends, or whatever you can spend the company's bonus budget on scoring devices and it won't help the problem. If you really want to address your problems with realistic expectations, go to the Technifold website and go through the archives for their newsletters. The one that comes to mind was the correct positioning of the set screws of the collars in relation to 360 degrees respectively. The new score system they sell I recently saw in action had no set screw in the female collar. I personally would not want that as I want the option of locking down the female collar or not but what they have done is try to help with this problem of wobble, flex, and jiggle in the shaft systems. This also applies to the Ultimate score. Same theory.

HTH,
John Weaver