Square back booklets

[jdr999]

How many offer square back booklets? Is it an up-charge or just an added benefit of using your shop?

We're a small retail shop without space for a large, dedicated booklet maker and run 10k+ booklets a year off our small ImagePress. Needless to say the booklets aren't flat and tricky to guillotine. We generally use a creased 80# dull cover and 24# inside pages. Typical run is 5.5x8.5 36 pages, up to 8.5x11 80+ pages..

I'm thinking of getting a small unit to run inline from our booklet conveyor. It's not cheap, but if it works the booklets will lie relatively flat and be much easier to trim... They also look nicer (in theory) so perceived value will be higher...

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Joe

 

[jrsc]

We squarefold almost everything in our shop. We don't usually upcharge for it. It is a great way to make a customer pick your shop even if you charge a little more because the difference is so drastic. It really makes a huge difference and we are the only local company that does it. If you are doing any additional finishing after binding it is worth it on your end just for the ease of handling. We do a quite a few mailed booklets that are only 4-12 pages + cover and square folding those because at that page count they sit perfectly flat and feed though our tabber so well.

 

[arossetti]

We saw it as a way to add value to our brand and did not charge for the actual service. You can be Spirit Airlines and bid bare bones, have a rep for horrible service and charge the extra dollar for each bag of peanut or you can be Nippon Airways and charge more for the actual airfare but be considered a five star airline.

 

[jdr999]

Awesome - that's what I was thinking also..

What kind of equipment are we talking about? Do you have a dedicated booklet maker or a booklet finisher on your press?

I run off my press and am thinking about something like:
https://www.formax.com/solutions/booklet-makers/square-it-finisher

 

[jrsc]

That's the unit we have on the end of our duplo bookletmaker. You can roll it up to anything or hand feed it. It's actually made by plockmatic. We just built a little wood cart to to make it the right height for our duplo.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

How much does one of these cost?

 

[davarino]

The Plockmatic 104 lists at about $6,900 USD last time I looked.

 

[jrsc]

I got mine used for a couple thousand.

 

[jdr999]

That's the unit we have on the end of our duplo bookletmaker. You can roll it up to anything or hand feed it. It's actually made by plockmatic. We just built a little wood cart to to make it the right height for our duplo.

Do you crease your covers? We usually run 80# glossy covers and crease them first before folding. I'm wondering how that will work the square fold?

 

[jrsc]

We usually do if they are cover weight and have toner on the fold. It folds first like normal than the square fold is the last step. So if it is going to crack without the square fold it will still crack with it.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

To be clear, if you run a single crease for the fold, and cracking is not evident, then you can run this booklet into the square folder and it will produce no cracking, even though it is not folding on the crease?

 

[jrsc]

I've only ever done a single crease. It's not working quite like you think. It's not folding it in 2 spots. It is the last step of the process. It gets made just like normal first. Single fold on the crease. The square folder doesn't actually fold anything. It just clamps the book and applies pressure against the spine of an already finished book that will flatten it out.

 

[fred111]

Do the books require face trimming after running through the square folder?

 

[davidspiel]

Why not just buy a perfect binder? This way you can use it instead of a stitcher? Our Sterling Digibinder will bind as little as 2 sheets up to 2 1/4 inches thick. You can also offer perfect binding. The machine sells for under $12,000.

You can see more about it here:

https://spielassociates.com/perfect-binders.html

Truly yours,

David Spiel
Spiel Associates, Inc.
45-01 Northern Blvd.
Long Island City, NY 11101
718-392-7900
[email protected]
www.spielassociates.com

 

[jrsc]

Do the books require face trimming after running through the square folder?

No. The process is stitch, fold, face trim, then square fold. So we face trim before square folding but it can be done after. The square fold doesn't have any effect on the trim. It's really just an extra step that gets done to finished booklets that flattens the spine.

 

[Craig]

No Title

 

[halmac]

We have a Morgana/Plokmatic booklet maker with a face trimmer and a spine press. It works very well. We print all of our booklets 2-up and insert the covers using the printer's inserter. Then we cut and trim the two outside edges before feeding them into the booklet maker. Except for our very small booklets, the books come off the booklet maker flat and trimmed and ready to shrinkwrap and pack in boxes. We bought the collating tower but never used it so we got rid of it. If the grain on the cover is going the right way you don't need to score the covers. If the books are spine-pressed before they are cut they are much easier to cut. They lie flatter in the cutter and sometimes you do not even need to use the "fingers" on the backstop.

 

[jdr999]

Why not just buy a perfect binder? This way you can use it instead of a stitcher?

Hi David,

When running 600-1800 programs I'm not sure perfect binding is the best answer.

No doubt I'd love to have one, but for now I can make pretty decent "almost perfect-bound" books in my Fastback.

 

[jdr999]

No Title

Ok, I bit the bullet and got one.

I used the contact form on the Formax website and had a rep contact me the same day. Not only that, Erik actually drove 5 hours each way to bring me out a machine to demo. I kept it.

Here's a photo I took. My C700 has a saddle-press which helps a little but I really don't need to use it now.

I was able to fit 400 36 page booklets (80# cover, 24# inside) in one empty Husky box. The box was way too heavy to move so I ended up repacking -- but boy do they stack! Absolutely no problem in the guillotine -- no more booklet clamps for me......

 

[jdr999]

Craig,

That's awesome -- but most likely beyond the capability of the Square IT and smaller machines. How many pages?