Allied Bindery

Bound for Excellence

Drilling – Remember the Margins

  You’ve just received a call from your bindery service provider informing you that they have stopped drilling your project because text or graphics are being drilled through. Now what?

 If you’re lucky, the content or design being drilled through is inconsequential. But what if the data being compromised is pricing information, or, product identification codes? Perhaps it’s a data chart? You could be facing a reprint or a significant discount to your customer, who will most likely be unhappy with the final product.

 Allowing for drill hole margins is crucial to meeting the quality expectation of your customer. In all likelihood, they expect the printer to think of attributes like this. Failure to include necessary margins to avoid drilling text or graphics will result in cosmetic failures, at best, or the elimination of critical information, at worst.

 Whether a book is being drilled for inclusion into a standard three ring binder or a special five hole automotive post binder, an appropriate gutter margin must be allowed on both text and covers. Also, it’s important not to forget how drilling may effect any fold out forms or bound reply cards. Each of these items may be easily overlooked, particularly if your company does not consistently produce drilled products.

 Involving the Sales and Planning Professionals at Allied Bindery can help you avoid these types of problems. We can provide you with the appropriate margins or templates that allow you to effectively plan for projects with drilling requirements. Give us a call at 248-588-5990 and let us help you achieve your customer’s expectations.

Round Cornering for Visual Enhancement

Publishers, Designers and Printers often look for cost effective ways of making their project more attractive or eye catching.  One option to consider is the round cornering of your bound or stitched project.

Round cornering provides a smooth, symmetrical curve to the face edges of the product, providing a visual effect that can be eye catching.

 There are a number of things to remember when considering the use of round cornering:

  • There are several sizes of round corner dies, so, it is best to provide the bindery with the trim size of the project so that the correct round corner dimensions may be provided.
  •  Although round cornering can be applied to either perfect bound or saddle stitched books, it is most visually pleasing on perfect bound work.  A saddle stitch book, by design, will not have as smooth of a face trim as a perfect bound book.  As a result, the round cornering will not look perfectly smooth on a saddle stitched product.
  • The design of the cover and text must be done with the round cornering in mind.  The project must be designed so that the round corner cuts do not remove or impede upon any graphics or text.  Plan for at least 1/8” clearance between the round corner and any text or graphics that must remain on the cover design.

 Involving the Sales and Planning Professionals at Allied Bindery can help you plan for any round cornering requirements.  Review of project trim size, thickness and cover and text design will result in a superior end product for your customer.

Planning Tips for Saddle Stitching

 Saddle stitching is a core service offering for most printers.  There are a few things to keep in mind when planning saddle stitch work to give your operators, or trade binder, the best opportunity for success.

 Saddle stitch signatures should be planned with a high folio lap (or lip) of at least ¼”.  If the paper is available, extend the size of the lap up to 5/8”.  When folding the signatures, make sure the folder operator achieves consistency with the size of the lap.  Nothing will drive a saddle stitcher operator to frustration faster than a varying lap size that causes mis-feeds and dropped signatures.

If your project requires a foldout, gatefold or accordion (Z-fold) signature, plan for this form to be tack glued when folding, so that the signature does not come apart or unravel when feeding through the collator pocket.  Allow at least 3/8” of foot trim margin (1/2” is better) for placement of the tack glue.  This additional margin will help insure that all of the tack glue is removed during the trimming process.

If the saddle stitch project is to be re-folded after stitching, make sure that your planner and customer know that the stitches should not be planned to align with one another after the re-fold.  By applying stitches in an offsetting position, the stitched area will be less subject to tearing or ripping due to undue stress.

Also, if the project is to be re-folded after stitching, keep in mind that the thicker the product, the higher the potential for push out, wrinkling or gusseting.  This is not a phenomena that the bindery will be able to overcome and should be addressed ahead of production with your customer.

Finally, consider the grain direction of the cover.  Planning for covers to print long grain (parallel to the spine), will help minimize cracking and marking during the cover feeding, folding and application process.  If you must print a cover short grain (perpendicular to the spine), have the cover die scored to minimize the potential for cracking and distortion along the spine when it is folded.

 A core value of Allied Bindery is to communicate on an on-going basis with our     industry friends.  Our objective is to share insight and observations considered valuable and helpful for our customers, helping them to provide an ever-increasing value proposition to their customers.                                

Allied Bindery is a premier trade bindery located in Madison Heights, Michigan, serving your bindery requirements for more than 20 years.  Give us a call today and allow us to help you meet your business and service goals.

Tech Tip: Ultra Thin Perfect Bound Books

Ultra Thin Perfect Bound Books

 Routinely, Allied Bindery is asked how thin of a book can be perfect bound.  One of our specialties is producing ultra thin perfect bound books.  We routinely bind books down to 1/16” thick.  There are several planning items to keep in mind when considering a book bulk that is this thin:

  •  Cover weight is very important when considering an ultra thin book.  The heavier the cover weight, the more likelihood that the first and last page of the book block will be pulled away by the side glue, leaving an unsightly gap in the book spine.  Cover weight for ultra thin books should never exceed 10 pt. and will ideally be less.
  •  A higher basis weight text paper will help allow lower page count books to be perfect bound.  However, keep in mind that the higher the text basis weight, the less layflat characteristic will be evident in the final book.
  • Cover design should accommodate the ultra thin requirement.  It is not wise to plan for a color break exactly on the spine and either front or back panel of the book cover.  On books this thin, cover placement variation as small as 1/64” will be quite evident if a solid color break is planned into the design.
  • Spine type should not be incorporated into a thin book design. 
  • PUR adhesive is the only choice that should be considered for ultra thin books.  The very nature of the thin book design results in a small amount of adhesive on the book spine.  PUR adhesive will provide the strength to hold the book together.

 Contact your Allied Bindery Sales or Estimating Representative to request assistance to help you build an ultra thin perfect bound book.  

 A core value of Allied Bindery is to communicate on an on-going basis with our   industry friends.  Our objective is to share insight and observations considered valuable and helpful for our customers, helping them to provide an ever-increasing value proposition to their customers.                          

Allied Bindery is a premier trade bindery located in Madison Heights, Michigan, celebrating more than 20 years of servicing your bindery requirements.

Mechanical Binding Planning Tips

An important consideration when planning a mechanically bound book (wire-o, plastic coil, spiral wire) is that it is not bound directly on the spine edge of the book.  Rather, the binding medium is inserted through punched holes that are 1/8” in from the spine edge of the book.  As a result, there are a number of considerations that must be included in the planning process.

A “clear margin” allowance must be incorporated between the trimmed spine edge of the sheets and the beginning of the text or graphics on the printed page.  This margin varies depending upon whether the project is planned to collate from single sheets or from the use of an adhesive bound book.  Higher page count projects are often more cost effective to produce by starting with an adhesive bound book.

When collating single sheets, or loose leaf option, the printer must ensure that at least 1/2” of clear margin is planned for the text and cover pages between the spine edge and the start of printed text or graphics.  When the bindery punches the text, there must be a minimum of 1/8” of paper left between the trimmed spine edge of the sheets and the start of the punched hole.  This 1/8” of paper provides the strength for the spine edge of the sheet and helps prevent an easy or inadvertent tear out of the punched sheet from the finished book.  An additional ¼” of clear space will be used for the actual punch hole.  This will leave 1/8” of clear space prior to the start of the text or graphics on the printed page.

If the printer has planned the mechanically bound project to be produced from an adhesive bound book, a clear margin space of 5/8” should be incorporated into the spine edge of the text.  Whether it will be the printer or the trade bindery that initially adhesive binds the book, the first 1/8” of the spine must be trimmed off the book in order to create the loose leaf book block for punching.  The remainder of the clear margin allowance is the same as explained for the loose leaf option.  Failure to incorporate the appropriate clear space margin may result in punch holes penetrating important text or graphics, creating either a cosmetic or informational problem for the end user.

Another key attribute to be considered by the printer is the mechanical binding option that is chosen.  Wire-O, Plastic Coil and Spiral Wire will all provide a book that lies open perfectly flat.  However, if cross alignment of text and graphics is a specific requirement, Wire-O is the only choice that will provide a direct cross over.  Both Plastic Coil and Spiral Wire will “step up” or offset the cross alignment between the open pages.

Tabs, inserts, semi- concealed covers and concealed covers all require special planning requirements.  It is best to involve your binding partner in the planning process in order to avoid unpleasant surprises later in the production process.

Involving the Sales and Planning Professionals at Allied Bindery will help you to plan for the most cost effective and schedule efficient project completion.  Give us a call and let us help you achieve your customer’s expectations.