Bound for the Desktop

For printers and quick-print shops adapting their businesses to the needs of an on-demand marketplace, having the right finishing equipment in house can make the difference in gaining a competitive edge.

Fortunately, today's manufacturers of desktop binding machinery are offering equipment that can produce highly professional results with a minimum of fuss or expense. Following is a sampling of what's currently available in the market.

Baumfolder's Baum Binder 300 is a perfect binder designed for use with books, reports, manuals, and more. The single-clamp unit, which can bind up to 300 books per hour, features a fully automatic self-centering cover station with an automatic opening and closing mechanism, and three time programs for cover nipping. The binder uses either hot-melt or dispersion gluing, depending on the project and paper type.

Duplo USA Corporation manufactures the DB-250 desktop perfect binder, which is rated at a throughput speed of up to 200 books per hour. The DB-250 features centrally located controls for single-operator efficiency, says the company. With automated binding, operators can simply place flat sheets into the clamp, where pages then are gripped automatically. A double pass over the roughening cutter ensures better glue penetration for a perfect bind, say Duplo officials, while the company's patented clamping and nipping system ensures precise, consistent, and square binds.

The DB-250 also can convert to a padding function at the push of a button.

James Burn International, known for its Wire-O binding solutions, makes available its EB32 EasyBind desktop unit. The offering can manually punch documents and close pre-cut Wire-O elements from 1/8" to ½" thick.

James Burn also offers desktop finishing solutions for its UniCoil line, including the Office Combi UniCoil finishing system for document punching, coil insertion, and crimping. The PB3300 Wire-O tabletop electric punch and finisher, manufactured by Lhermite, is offered as well.

Plastikoil offers its PBS Combo machine, an inexpensive binding system that enables manual punching and coil insertion with no electricity. The PBS 20E features electric coil insertion functionality, and can bind books up to ¾" thick.

Powis Parker offers its Fastback family of binding systems. The smallest offering in the line, Model 8, can bind 10 to 275 sheets in 40 seconds, says the company. Fastback Model 11 is a high-volume machine that can bind up to 125 sheets in less than 35 seconds, while the equally rugged Model 15xs can bind up to 350 sheets in less than 25 seconds.

Model 15xs works with all of Powis Parker's binding materials, including Halfback covers and Perfectback Lay Flat strips for perfect-bound books. Model 15xs also allows users to produce hardcover books using Powis Parker's new hardcover system, which offers covers in a choice of library cloth, art cloth, composition, and suede in a range of sizes and colors.

Standard Business Systems manufactures its space-saving Bindfast 5 perfect binder and padder, which is capable of producing up to 150 perfect-bound books per hour, or 72,000 padded sheets per hour. In addition, the company offers the BQ P6 binder, padder, and taper, which can produce perfect binds and spine-taped books at a rate of up to 140 books an hour, or up to 480 notepads an hour.

Additionally, Standard's Accubind document binding system uses an advanced thermal-adhesive binding technology to create a flexible, professional-looking linen-cloth bind for documents up to 1" thick.

Unibind offers a range of desktop steel binding solutions, including the Unibind 425, which affords the binding of up to 16 documents simultaneously, and the 625, which can handle up to 24 documents at a time. Providing hardback book covers, as well as acetate with colored spines, Unibind also produces plastic comb and wire-binding equipment.