American Binding Products

THOUGH SEVERAL of the press conferences and ”big news” at Drupa centered around digital printing, innovations in bindery and finishing were no less prevalent. In fact, many of them sprang from the very digital printing trends that overshadowed them. As digital printing speeds have increased, bindery equipment has also gotten faster, with vastly improved automation and simplified touchscreen controls to make them even easier to set up. JDF compatibility is becoming more common in bindery equipment, allowing devices to be preset using production data. Demands for higher-quality printed products have led bindery vendors to improve their paper-handling techniques. Folds look better on the latest

Folder-Gluer Proves to Be Twice as Nice DALLAS/FT. WORTH—Trade finisher Registermarks Letter Press Services recented added its second Bobst Fuego 110 A-2 CS folder-gluer in the past 18 months. The company runs order sizes from a few thousand to more than two million, which means some jobs can tie up a folder for two days. “Adding the second Fuego has allowed us to complete many of these large orders in a single shift,” explains Mark Requena, president. The new Fuego has been fitted with a multi-feeder inserter device for tipping in CDs, cards and booklets during the folding operation. “With this configuration, we

Gämmerler will launch the BL 408 bindery stacker for use behind saddlestitchers, perfect binders, folders and inserters. Features wide format range, two-stage stacking system and a low copy drop height. The infeed is equipped with four top belts and eight bottom belts. Visit www.piworld.com/infocenter and enter number 381 Goss International will unveil its Pacesetter 2200 and 2500 saddlestitchers. The systems feature servo-driven hoppers and excel at quick makereadies. The Pacesetter 2200 system completes up to 22,000 books per hour. The Pacesetter 2500 model features a dual stitcher and a 25,000 books per hour capacity. Visit www.piworld.com/infocenter and enter number

BY CHRIS BAUER Football season is upon us, and the focus of most teams is on the quarterback. Some quarterbacks are pocket passers like the Saint Louis Rams' Kurt Warner, while others like to get out of the pocket and make plays on-the-run, like the Philadelphia Eagles' Donovan McNabb. For the printing industry, talk of pockets brings us to the bindery—where new collating equipment can be the quarterback of the finishing department. Just like NFL-caliber players, collating equipment has to be tough, smart, reliable and flexible, equipment vendors say. The same broad trends that are shaping the printing industry at large—shorter run

Richard Mascola has been appointed regional sales manager for MAN Roland's commercial web division, overseeing a territory that includes the Midwest and Manitoba, Canada. Mascola will be based in the Chicago area. For the past four years, Mascola served as regional sales manager of American Roller Co. Also, Michael Lake, a 20-year veteran of the graphic arts industry, has joined MAN Roland as a district sales manager in Minnesota and North and South Dakota. Previously, Lake served for 16 years with the Gannett Co. in a variety of executive positions. American Binding Co., based in Miami Beach, recently announced that it has merged with Italian-based

BY CHRIS BAUER The anticipation is over. PRINT 01 has come and gone. Printers from around the U.S. have headed home—although, for many, actually getting home after the terrorist attacks wound up being even more eventful than the show—with a full plate of information to digest after spending several days on the show floor in Chicago. But distributors of collating equipment are banking on the PRINT show as being the appetizer that whet the appetite of printers hungry for collating gear. The equipment offered today includes a full menu of features and options to satisfy all of the industry's yearnings. "The hot buttons

BY CHRIS BAUER With PRINT 01 just around the corner, and thousands of printers ready to storm the show floor in Chicago, laminating equipment suppliers are confidently standing ready to seal a deal and send many show attendees back to their shops with new laminating gear in tow. "Most of our customers are looking for compact, automatic machines with standard equipment (including) feeder, calender, separator and collection table, easy installation and low prices," contends Dr. Cesare Sassi of American Binding Co. "A few are also looking for high-speed machines with savings on working time and on raw material costs. Some customers are asking

BY ERIK CAGLE The evolution of book publishing has some parallels with that of the computer. Smaller and quicker are the operative words in this comparison. Before the PC became a household fixture, computers were hulking boxes with reel-to-reel tapes and other round objects that made those cute little concentric circles. And they weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, boasting the processing speed of a can opener. Book publishing was also big and scarry—1,000-page megatomes were loaded onto presses to churn out millions of copies. "War and Peace" was followed by hundreds of thousands of 500-page copies of biology books. Obviously, they

With good help hard to find, the right tool for the job is the key to value-added finishing techniques. BY ERIK CAGLE There's no need to tell Joe Rigby that market demand for plastic coil binding jobs can be a finicky one. The owner of Delaware Valley Bindery in Trenton, NJ, may field four or five plastic coil jobs in one month, then nary a quote for three or four months. As job traffic goes, so does the number of added workers at Delaware Valley Bindery, who are temporary employees. "This kind of work goes hot and cold. We'll have a lot of jobs in a short