Peeking at Postpress

The postpress offerings at the upcoming Graph Expo and Converting Expo 2004 show in Chicago, slated to be held October 10-13, include many devices designed to make the automation of processes like binding and trimming simple and cost-effective for a range of users. Following is a preview of some of what show attendees will see at McCormick Place.

Baumfolder Corporation (Booth 3406) will be introducing its new Baum 26 and Baum 30 large-format floor model continuous-feed folders at Graph Expo. The company also will be showing the all-new Baum Flexifeed deep pile feeder module, which the company says enables longer production runs with the automated Baum Flexifold modular folder. Baumfolder also be showing its latest drilling, cutting, and finishing equipment.

Brandtjen & Kluge (Booth 400) will be showing its 3,300-iph EHF Series press, which offers a stronger main frame, stronger platen bolts, and heavier side arms to give the press greater impressional strength. Improved side arm design gives the press almost three times the preload pressure, say company officials.

Also to be shown is the Kluge UniFold automatic folder/gluer, which features a portable buckle fold unit, final fold unit, TransTable converting unit, and stacker unit.

Finally, Brandtjen & Kluge will show the Kawahara TXR-1100 Series automatic blank separator, an off-line machine that automatically blanks die-cut sheets of stock.

Colter & Peterson (Booth 800) will be showing numerous pieces of finishing equipment, including Wohlenberg perfect binders, Wohlenberg Prism and Saber paper cutters, and Baumann paper handling equipment.

Duplo USA Corporation (Booth 3052) is launching the DC-645 slitter/cutter/creaser, the next-generation version of its DC-545HC. The device is capable of reading printed images, automatically adjusting to compensate for image shift. Developed to support the JDF standard, the DC-645 features an optional state-of-the-art user interface.

Duplo also will highlight the SCC (slit/cut/crease) bookletmaking system, incorporating a DSF-2000 sheet feeder (with optional barcode reader), the SCC unit, a DBM-500 bookletmaker, and a DBM-500 trimmer. According to the manufacturer, the system, designed principally for the digital color market, brings a slit/cut/crease function to the near-line bookletmaking process.

Lastly, Duplo will feature the Duetto bookletmaking and collating solution, an advanced hybrid system based on its System 5000 offering. The Duetto incorporates up to three DC-10/60 collating towers, a DSF-2000 dynamic sheet feeder, and DBM-500 bookletmaker, and addresses both digital and offset requirements.

Gammerler (Booth 2222) will debut the RS 164 rotary trimmer, with new double-knife technology for nick-free trimming at high press speeds for products up to 25.4 mm thick. Upper and lower segmented knives replace the traditional upper knife and lower anvil for powerful shearing action, says the company.

Also at the show, Gammerler will highlight its KL 6000 compensating/indexing stacker, ideal for hard-to-stack products including low-page-count, high-page-count, and gravure products, and the SV 500 vertical log stacker.

Finally, Gammerler will showcase its PowerLift Palletizing System, designed to improve palletizing efficiency by assisting the operator with the lifting process.

Heidelberg (Booth 1000) will show its new compact folder, Easyfold, designed for short-run A3 printing. The device retains preprogrammed settings for the six most frequently used fold types, and allows users to store three additional fold types in memory.

Also on the roster for Graph Expo is the Stahl B 20 folding machine with flat pile feeder, suitable for frequent job changes in the small- and medium-format ranges; the Stahlfolder TH 66 6/4/4 with high-pile delivery and Stahlfolder TH 82 4 w/Speedbander 604, featuring reduced changeover times and increased output; and postpress peripherals, including the SSP 82 with UFS mailing table, cardtipper, and Pamatec punching unit.

The manufacturer also will be showing several Polar innovations, including the Polar 66 cutter, designed for smaller-size products for quick printers, copy shops, franchisers, and commercial sheetfed printers. The high-speed Polar 78, able to handle a wide array of materials including paper, cardboard, card stock, and foil, also will be on display, along with the Polar 115XT with DC-M die cutter punch.

In addition, the Polar System 2, offering jogging at the high-speed cutter and automatic unloading, will be featured in the booth. The Polar System 2 will be featured with 137XT-Autotrim (consisting of the LW-1000-6 stack lift, RA-4 jogger, scale, 137XT Autotrim cutter, Autotrim conveyor system, and TR-1ER-130-5 Transomat palletizer). Heidelberg also will show the Polar PW4ABV pile turner and the Dynamatrix 105CS die cutter.

James Burn International (Booth 3331) will be showing two models within its BB43 series of Wire-O document finishers, accommodating a high rate of production for binding edges from 2" to 27". Also within the Wire-O line, the company will debut its semi-automatic Wire-O binder, capable of finishing 500 to 1,000 books per hour.

James Burn also will bring its UniCoil CB30QS quick-setup automatic plastic spiral inserter to the show. Another option in crimping is the PC200 UniCoil two-sided automatic crimper, featuring a simultaneous cut/crimp process for improved productivity.

Lastly, James Burn offers the Office Combi UniCoil document finishing system, combining document punching, UniCoil insertion, and crimping into a single tabletop unit capable of finishing documents of up to 120 pages.

MBO America (Booth 2073) will showcase its B26-S/444 Perfection folder, featuring Navigator control and a touch screen, and its B30-S/444 Perfection folder with new features including a slitter shaft cassette in parallel, and automatic set-up and barcode recognition. The company's B21/6X knife folder, with the Bograma BS Multi 450 S punching machine, flat track delivery, and hhs cold-glue system also will be shown, along with the B26/4 with an H&H transport system, vacu belts, Pick & Place tip-on, and an hhs hot-melt system.

In addition, MBO will have in its booth the Thiesen & Bonitz sprint B-310VP 10-station variable pile collator, stitcher, folder, and trimmer, featuring program control and three-side trimming.

Müller Martini (Booth 1447) will debut for the North American market its Frontero face-cut trimmer for the production of brochures or books with gatefold covers. Rated at up to 6,000 cycles per hour, the device can be retrofitted with existing perfect binding lines.

Also being shown for the first time in North America is Müller Martini's Alprinta variable-size web press line, which is available in 201/2" and 291/8" widths. The CIP3- and CIP4-compatible Alprinta can be equipped with new size-variable insert modules for special applications such as package printing.

Müller Martini also will show its new Esprit three-knife trimmer, designed to make short-run perfect binders, such as the company's Tigra offering, perform more cost-effectively in a single-pass soft-cover production line.

On display as well will be the company's BravoPlus Amrys (Automatic Makeready System) offering, which automates the set-up of saddle stitching systems between jobs. Capable of producing books at 13,000 copies per hour, BravoPlus Amrys offers a computer-integrated manufacturing interface for downloading job parameters directly from a facility's MIS or prepress system.

Müller Martini's SigmaLine on-demand book system will be shown within the Océ exhibit (Booth 3000) at Graph Expo. The SigmaLine begins with a roll-fed digital press, capable of applying one color to both sides of paper simultaneously. Its output is folded in line, then sent to either SigmaLine's integrated perfect binder or its in-line saddle stitcher. An in-line trimmer, capable of one-off variable book trimming, completes the job.

Finally, the manufacturer's new Compacto rotary trimmer offers a patented centering feature that enables it to more accurately process different size formats.

Rollem International (Booth 3432) will demonstrate the Rollem Revolution, a smaller-layout card converting system featuring in-line two-directional cutting, collating, and die cutting capability at processing speeds up to 40 packs per minute (500,000 pieces in one hour) with just one operator. The machine can run in line with any shrink-wrapping or over-wrapping machine.

The company also will show the TR System, offering single-pass, die-scoring, two-directional slitting, perforating/trimming multiple processing along with precision score, perf, and slit capabilities.

In addition, Rollem will show its Champion Turbo system for scoring digital stocks, and a new line of Durselen paper drilling systems.

Standard Finishing Systems (Booth 3631) will be launching a number of new CIP4/JDF-enabled finishing solutions under the theme of "Think Automation."

The company will showcase its CIP4/JDF-enabled i2i finishing products, including folders, binders, cutters, saddle stitchers, and more. The i2i system provides bar-coded tickets for easy job management; the ability to save and recall recurring jobs, job record data for accounting, and analysis; and the ability to monitor job status of i2i-connected machines in real time from a central console, says the manufacturer. All of the company's offerings mentioned below are i2i-compatible, with the exception of the Standard Hunkeler UM 520-W.

Slated to be shown is the Standard Horizon HOF-30 sheet feeder for pre-collated digital output, rated at an output speed up to 27,000 sheets per hour. Combined with Horizon SPF-20- or SPF-30-class saddle stitching systems and a collating tower, the system can effectively serve print shops that have both offset and digital printing capabilities, says the manufacturer.

Standard also will show the Standard Horizon SB-09 perfect binder, which can be run as a standalone binder or as a complete binding system with in-line gathering and three-knife trimming, and can accommodate single-person print-on-demand book production of up to 4,000 books per hour. Also for the print-on-demand book environment, the Standard Horizon HT-30 three-knife trimmer operates off line to trim perfect-bound books at speeds up to 200 cycles per hour.

Shown as well will be several accessories for the Standard Horizon AFC folder, including a new continuous pile feeder, a new palette feeder, a mobile knife-fold unit, and a press stacking and semi-automatic bundling unit.

Finally, the company will display the Standard Hunkeler UM 520-W universal module, working in line with a Standard Horizon AFC-744AKT automated folder producing personalized booklets that are die cut, glued, folded, and trimmed on three sides.

Vijuk Equipment Inc. (Booth 3647) will introduce the compact, easy-to-operate Setmaster horizontal collator. Each of the collator's feeding stations load on the run and are equipped with an adjustable feeding head and air blast separator, ensuring accurate sheet separation, according to the manufacturer.

Vijuk also will exhibit its improved Vijuk 321-T saddle stitching system with Bograma Punch attached at the delivery end. The new model, rated at 10,000 cycles per hour, features missing-stitch detection along with the 321-T's comprehensive quality-control system.

Lastly, Vijuk will have on hand a complete line of miniature and commercial folders and folding accessories, along with its unique side-stitch/tape/cut Multi-BookPad System and computerized full-sheet and high-die die cutters.