Cleat Sewing

A method of sewing individual leaves together to produce a workable book block.

Examples: Thesis and magazines that are being prepared to produce a 12 month publication.

Tips:

• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers:

Drilling

The process of inserting holes in a finished product with a drilling process.

Examples: Swing tickets, binder inserts

Tips:

• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers:A G BookBinders, Alltab Australia, BJ Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Ferrostaal, Label Die Cutting, Marvel Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Miracle Bookbinding, Northern Tags & Envelopes, Pandoras Boxes, Prestige Bookbinders,

Folding

Your job can be folded in a number of different ways from a single fold in half to more complex 2 and 3 fold options. For jobs on heavier stock (200gsm or more) the sheets are scored first to avoid cracking along the fold. There are lots of different folding patterns, refer to diagrams listed for basic suggestions.

Examples: Brochures, magazines, books (hard case). These folding patters are also used in direct mail products.

Tips:

• Please note grain direction should run in the same direction as the spine. Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers:A G BookBinders, Alltab Australia, BJ Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Cooper & Turner Pty Ltd (Machinery), CP Gluing, Ferrostaal, Heidelberg Australia, Marvel Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Miracle Bookbinding, Northern Tags & Envelopes,

For magazine and book work conventional 8 page, 12 page, 16 page, 24 page and 32 page impositions can be utilised.

Process Requirements & Guidelines:

Please note and adhere to the following points when planning your next folding job:

• When folding for saddle stitching or section sewing there must be an allowance for a 10mm lap edge on the back half of the section.
• All lay edges to be clearly marked. Printing lay and position of print on sheets must be uniform on all sections.
• All folding sheets to be delivered untrimmed.
• Where line-ups are required, stock must be guillotined on all four edges before printing. Mill cut stock will not be acceptable.
• Gate-folds must have a minimum of 5mm gap in the centre.
• If gate-fold has line-ups in the centre, the sheet must be concertina folded and then hand folded back. Please advise of line-ups when quoting.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Guillotining/Trimming

The cutting down of finished product into specific sizes using a guillotine.

Examples: Swing tickets, greeting cards, letterhead, business cards, pre trimming stock before manufacture as well as post cylinder cutting.

Tips:

• Please ensure that sheets are well knocked up from the press.
• Clearly mark lay corner and grip.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers: A G BookBinders, Alltab Australia, Avon Graphics, BJ Bookbinding & Printfinishing, CP Gluing, Ferrostaal, Heidelberg Australia, Marvel Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Miracle Bookbinding, Northern Tags & Envelopes, Pandoras Boxes, Precision Forme Cutting Pty Ltd,

Process Requirements & Guidelines:

• Web sections for 3 Knife Trimming must be KNOCKED UP and STACKED SQUARE in EQUAL QUANTITIES.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Hard Case Binding

Case binding (edition binding) is the most common type of binding for hardcover books where pages, arranged in signatures, are sewn together and hard covers (cloth, vinyl, or leather cases) are attached.

Examples: Thesis, reference books, prestige publications, manuals

Tips:

• Please note grain direction should run in the same direction as the spine.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers: Ferrostaal, Pandoras Boxes, Prestige Bookbinders,

Process Requirements & Guidelines:

When contemplating the production of hard cover book it needs to be thoroughly planned. A hard cover book must be well balanced between the weight of the book and the weight of the cover board.

When planning a hard cover book correctly inform your binder of the following points:

• Endpapers – are they printed or plain?
• Is the book square back or round back?
• Does the book have head and tail bands?
• Does the book require gold blocking on front, back, spine or all three?
• Cover material. Identification of the correct material can win or lose the printer job, because of the wide variance in costs of book cloths. Wherever possible please supply a sample book.
• Depth of the cover is always 3mm longer at the head and 3mm wider. This allows the book to have a finished square cover appearance.

Please note and adhere to the following:

• If a job has a printed paper case the material must be a minimum of 20mm larger at the head and foot and 40mm for the foredge plus and allowance for the spine width which can only be determined from the dummy sample.The stock must be a minimum of 130 gsm and be laminated.
• Do not print the dust jacket until you have a dummy sample of the book. It is difficult to predict the size of the spine without a sample.
• Printed area of dust jackets must be 7mm larger all round than the finished trimmed size.
• Always allow 3mm of unprinted paper along the spine of the first and last section and along endpapers. This is to ensure glue for the endpapering has two plain surfaces to adhere to for a quality result.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Perfect/Burst Binding

Perfect binding: the spine is milled off and notched. Glue is then applied to the binding edge of the pages along the spine, i.e. it is bound as single leaves. Burst Binding has notches on the spine which are done during the folding operation. During the binding process the glue penetrates the notches into the centre of the section. Burst binding is more durable than perfect binding, but not as strong or as expensive as section sewing.

Examples: Paperbacks, catalogues, magazines

Perfect binding is ideal for A4 and A3 printers and digital printers whereby their print size does not allow burst binding. Perfect binding is also utilised in the web printing market.

Tips:

• A disadvantage is that the publication doesn’t lie flat, so some users will crack the spine and pages may eventually fall out.
• As a result it’s wise to leave a wide inside margin so that readers don’t have to open the publication flat to read what’s printed near the margin.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers: BJ Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Ferrostaal, Heidelberg Australia, Marvel Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Miracle Bookbinding, Prestige Bookbinders,

Process Requirements & Guidelines:

Please note and adhere to the following points when planning your next binding job:

• If folded sections are supplied and do not have correct burst bound notches we will not proceed with this binding method. We would then offer perfect binding.
• Burst binding can only be achieved with 4pp, 8pp, 12pp or 16pp sections.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Plastic Coil Binding

The sheets and the covers to be bound are punched with a row of slots or round holes along the binding edge. A machine is loaded with a plastic coil which is then inserted through the holes and secured.

Examples: School books, diaries, recipe books, instruction manuals, small run manuals

Tips:

• Publications can be opened flat very easily, but the text pages suffer from considerable wear and tear along the binding edge.

Suppliers: Alltab Australia, Marvel Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Miracle Bookbinding, Prestige Bookbinders

Process Requirements & Guidelines:

Please note and adhere to the following points when planning your next Wire-Comb job:

• Always allow 15mm from spine to printing edge for punching.
• Do not pre-trim covers. This is to allow the binder to compensate for the foredge round of the wire-comb and allow extra for the trimming of the front and back covers.
• Collating can be flat sheets of folded sections. When folded sections are supplied the spine must be perforated, this enables the sections to remain flat along the spine for the trimming of 4 edges.
• Packing. To protect the wire binding, special cartons should always be madewhen unusual sizes are involved, notably calendars – 2 to 50 per carton.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Saddle Stitching

Saddle-stitching is the traditional method of putting books together where wire staples are inserted through the fold at the spine and are clinched in the centre of the centre spread, so the pages lie flat when the piece is opened.

Examples: Magazines, catalogues, newspaper inserts

Tips:

• Please contact your binder on the maximum thickness to be stapled, i.e. 96 pages plus cover on 80gsm stock and 250gsm cover would be around the maximum thickness. This of course varies with different weight stocks.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers: A G BookBinders, Alltab Australia, BJ Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Ferrostaal, Heidelberg Australia, Marvel Bookbinding & Printfinishing,

Process Requirements & Guidelines:

Please note and adhere to the following points when planning your next Saddle-Stitching job:

• The back half of the folded section must have a 10mm lap edge.
• Do not crease covers as this operation is done automatically on the flow-line.
• Grain direction of board covers should ran head to tail to avoid cracking.
• Covers should be laminated or sealed to avoid scuffing.
• When planning 2 up work the minimum cut must be 6mm and the maximum 10mm.
• Minimum distance between staples is 60mm.
• Web or pre-folded sections must be supplied flat in cages or bundled, with end boards.
• All sections should be laid to the head.
• Mailing cards – minimum pick up edge must be 50mm.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Section Sewing

Section sewing is a method suitable for books of more than 32 pages which require a strong, high-quality finish. Best for ‘high use’ books, the folded sections of the book are collated, then sewn together with thread. The cover is then drawn on and glued to the spine.
Note: all hard case bound books are section sewn.

Examples: Street directories, high quality publications and hard case bound books

Tips:

• You must wrap or insert 4 page and 8 page sections as these are too thin to section sew but please confirm with your binder.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers: Ferrostaal, Marvel Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Prestige Bookbinders,

Process Requirements & Guidelines:

Please note and adhere to the following points when planning your next sewing job:

• All sections must have a 10mm lap edge on the front half of each section.
• Printing lay and position of print on sheets must be uniform on all sections.
• When sections are folded they must all be the same size head to tail.
• All sections must have collation marks printed in the correct sequence on the spine of each section.
• 16 Page Sections are required for sewing. If printing as 4 or 8 page sections plan to insert one into another to make a 16 page section.
• All inserts and wraps must be the same size as sections and have the same lap edge as sections.
• When planning a book which has a small section required, e.g. 10x16pg +1x8pg always plan the 8 page section to wrap around any 16 page section.
• Web or pre-folded sections must be supplied flat in cages of bundled, with end boards.
• All sections should be laid to the head.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Stapling

About the simplest and cheapest form of binding, the edges of a document can either be two stapled or single stapled in the top left hand corner.

Examples: Short run documents such as handouts, proposals, part lists, invoice and delivery books

Tips:

• You may need to leave an inside margin of at least 40mm for the staples.
• You can improve the look of a stapled production by the simple expedient of adding a sheet of overhead projector foil on the front and back or covering the staples with suitable coloured tape.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers: A G BookBinders, Alltab Australia, Marvel Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Pandoras Boxes, Prestige Bookbinders,

Thread Sealing

This is a process of mechanically sewing single sections in the folding process and is better than burst binding but not as robust as section sewn.

Examples: Annual reports, catalogues and hard case bound books

Tips:

• Please note grain direction should run in the same direction as the spine.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers: Ferrostaal, Heidelberg Australia,

Wire Binding

Double loop wire binding is where the wire forms teeth or double loops that fit into rectangular holes in the paper The loops are crimped to hold the wire in place. Like comb and coil bindings, these allow the book to lay flat when open.

Examples: Calendars, diaries, catalogues, product guides, road atlases

Tips:

• A margin must be allowed for to take up the hole position on the spine.
• The maximum thickness of wire is 30mm so check with your binder as to the maximum quantity of pages that can be bound.
• Always contact your supplier for individual specifications.

Suppliers: Alltab Australia, Marvel Bookbinding & Printfinishing, Pandoras Boxes, Prestige Bookbinders