Welcome to our Award Winning Bindery Success Blog!

As a bindery novice, folding machines with pile feeders made me want to pull out my hair, or on a really bad day, someone else’s hair. The bigger the pile of crumpled paper around the folder, the further away my co-workers would stay. Except for one friend who intentionally waited until I reached the breaking point. With a Cheshire grin he’d slap me on the back and say, “Hey, Andre, how’s it going?!” In time, I learned a few things about pile feeders which didn’t keep my friend away, but they kept the folder running smoothly.

Most of us are accustomed to hearing about awards, usually bestowed one colleague to another by institutions from within our printing industry. But how would we fare out there in the big, bad world? Graham Harris decided to find out.

A good part of my bindery work experience included the high volume guillotine cutting of millions of little tags and labels for a printer who serviced the garment industry. These ranged from tiny cloth garment tags (you know, like the ones inside t-shirts that scratch and annoy you) to tags and labels printed on regular stock.

Today we’re talking guillotine cutters with Dave Double of Double Equipment, a bindery equipment repair specialist based in Ohio.

Here’s a guillotine cutter accessory that has been around as long as guillotine cutting machines. It's a simple jogging block which can be either homemade from wood or manufactured in plastic with a magnetic base. Their simple purpose is to keep cut pieces from scattering all over the cutter bed and to help in jogging cut sheets. Nearly every guillotine cutter operator uses one.

In a bindery equipment operator’s fantasy world, every sheet of paper is perfectly square, perfectly flat and all the edges are straight, from the first sheet to the last. In our real world, intruded upon by competitive pressures and the low-cost paper that comes our way, we know this is not the case. Sometimes paper isn't stored right, maybe it distorts during and after printing, maybe it's a deckle edge sheet or maybe the converter simply does a sloppy job.

Learning to run a folding machine can be a little overwhelming, especially if you’re thrust directly into a bindery department production environment without much training. I remember my first day on the job being shown the antique Baum folding machine and thinking, “Seriously now…that thing actually folds paper?”

Most of us involved in bindery and post-press work get the ‘privilege’ of working with trucking companies. It’s often a task delegated to the new guy.

One of the drawbacks to trimming thick saddle-stitched books is that it’s nearly impossible to get a perfect trim on all three sides. Usually the head and foot of the spine of the book will tear or nick during the trimming process. There is simply no way to prevent this since the area near the spine has nothing to support it in the trimmer or cutter.

Having trouble finding qualified, skilled help for your post-press department? You’re not alone. A recent article on piworld.com highlights a common lament in the printing industry. "Finding a qualified worker who has the special skill set, knowledge and ability to accomplish the assigned job is an ongoing challenge. This “skills gap” is growing more severe, forcing many manufacturers to scale back their growth plans."