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Stitched ripping booklet

I am running a newsletter on our Horizon VAc 100 collate and spf-20 booklet maker. It's 10 sheets 11x18 finishing to 8.5x11 and digitally printed on 80# matte text self cover. When I set the stitch up to hit the center of the fold where it should be - the staple rips through the top 2 or three sheets of the booklet. I've included a couple of pictures to help illustrate. I've tried adjusting the nip of the fold rollers and adjusting the height of the fold knife and neither adjustment makes a difference. In my other shop location I have a similiar equipment setup and it does the same thing. The only way I can get it to run without ripping anything is to center the fold on the spine and run the staples a little to the left of the spine. It works but is obviously not ideal. Any suggestions on how to get it to run?

Thanks,
MIKE

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Your fold rollers are ripping the cover from the booklet. If the rollers are steel get a scrubby pad and scrub the rollers. probably the first set will do. If rubber scrub with a cloth. Built up fuser oils etc from digital causing slippage. Bet if you use a blank sheet of plain offset paper as the cover it works ok.
 
Let me know if you come up with a fix for this because both of our Morgana's do this. Plockmatic charged us $1000 to come out and look at the machines and didn't fix it. They just looked at it and said Oh, there's a software update for this. Ran the software update and then never actually fixed it. Then got mad at us when we complained about it not being fixed. (Yes, I'm a bit bitter about Plockmatic/Morgana).

Moving the staples to the "back edge" of the square spine only sometimes works for us.
Your fold rollers are ripping the cover from the booklet. If the rollers are steel get a scrubby pad and scrub the rollers. probably the first set will do. If rubber scrub with a cloth. Built up fuser oils etc from digital causing slippage. Bet if you use a blank sheet of plain offset paper as the cover it works ok.
I'd love to try this but the Plockmatic rollers do not appear to be accessible without a significant amount of disassembly (far beyond what I would be comfortable attempting).
 
Thanks for the suggestion. I cleaned the chrome rollers and the rubber rollers and ran two test books and they worked fine. One of the chrome rollers was not very accessible and had to clean about a half inch at a time and jog the machine to advance the roller - but it seems to have worked. The real test will be later in the week when another job comes through. I appreciate the help!
 
I'd love to try this but the Plockmatic rollers do not appear to be accessible without a significant amount of disassembly (far beyond what I would be comfortable attempting).
I know that feeling. However.. I had a thought.. Run some covers with cleaner on them. EG, A soft uncoated cover sheet with a cleaner of some kind.. I don't know the odds of igniting a solvent by doing that.. :rolleyes: But there are machines that use this method to clean up rollers etc. Perhaps a non flammable solvent. Just a thought. I take NO responsibility for anything you might try.. I do NOT recommend this course of action. (← Legal disclaimer :cool:)
 

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