by Milt Vine
I know a number of you have in-house bindery capabilities, including folding. If you do, you've probably had your share of folding headaches on complicated projects. You may have needed to outsource work, or even turn away projects, because of the complexity of the folding required for the job. Below are some case studies to illustrate how a combination of the right equipment, capable staff, trial and error and tricks of the trade can eliminate daunting problems.
Size does matter. Some obstacles cannot be gotten around without the appropriate equipment, and press sheet size is one of them. We did a folding job recently which came in on 30" press sheets. If we didn't have a 30" MBO folding machine, we couldn't have accepted the job, no matter how sophisticated our other equipment or how savvy the staff.
Knowing the score. The larger problem was the thickness of the paper, a weighty card stock. With heavy stock there are a number of potential pitfalls. First, it's hard to get sharp, clean creases and avoid box folds, those double creases alongside a score which prevent a piece from completely closing. An essential step toward a good fold is to pre-score the press sheets, something we do all the time at Seattle Bindery. As you know, scoring accuracy depends on the equipment used. On a project with a gate fold, accuracy is extremely important, since a slightly off-the-mark score makes the difference between a snug gate and an unsightly gap.
Prep, plan, play around. Planning the job through to the end is the next step; measure twice, fold once, to paraphrase the golden rule of carpenters. Of course, some problems don't arise until the process is already underway. The finished product of the above job was to be a 4 1/4" x 8 1/2" brochure which opened into a gate fold, with an attached BRC flap tucked inside the right gate panel. First the short flap with the BRC had to fold up into the right inside panel, then the right and left panels had to be folded in to create the gate before the final fold down the center could be made.
The first folding unit flipped the short BRC flap onto the larger unfolded sheet just fine. But the short flap got caught in the rollers of the next folding unit and started ripping off. Our machine operators deserve the credit for dealing with this problem; they adjusted the roller tension on the units so the piece was gripped tightly enough to move through the machine without getting stuck, but not so tightly that the flap would be wrested from the rest of the piece. Several hours of trial and error went into finding that balance.
The last challenge created by the thick stock was the final crease down the center, difficult because of the triple thickness that the BRC flap added to the right side. There are tricks for coaxing thick folded sheets through folding units; a more time- and cost-efficient option, however, was to use a knife attachment instead of a folding unit for the final fold.
Map mayhem. I'm sure there are projects you do repeatedly, so much so that you think you could pretty much do them in your sleep and with one hand tied behind your back. We do a lot of map folding at Seattle Bindery, so we're familiar with potential problems and know how to avoid them. Box folds, rollout, dog ears-no problem. We were tested on a recent map folding project, however, which served to remind us how important it is to be able to think on your feet.
The job required a horizontal crease in half followed by four vertical accordion pleats in 31" by 19" sheets. Getting panels consistently the same size with an accordion fold always takes a bit of work, and this was no exception, requiring two parts upfront planning and two parts trial and error. The final fold was also a bit of a challenge, but here as in the previous case the right equipment, this time a 26" MBO folding unit, did the trick. The biggest problem in this job, however, was created by the coated paper, which challenged us at every step of the process.
Pop goes the paper. Coated stock by itself is problematic for map folding, but the varnish on the cover panel made this product almost unmanageable. First, newly folded sheets kept opening inside each folding unit like pages in a children's pop-up book. To keep the panels closed, the machine operators put chipboard through the shafts of the folders. That worked fine for inside the machine-but when the pieces fed out onto the conveyor belt, they popped open again. That was fixed by placing weights on the product as it emerged from the folding units. Finally the finished maps headed to the stacker-and slithered all over, laying every which way except one on top of another. Steel banding around the pieces as they were stacked reigned in the chaos, keeping the product neatly (and vertically) piled for shrinkwrapping and packaging.
As you can see, binderies have no magic formulas at their disposal to fix folding frustrations. Your bindery can forge solutions, however, from a mix of metal and manpower, modification and innovation.
Milt Vine is president of Seattle Bindery, a post-production house specializing in custom index tabbing in addition to bindery services including plastic spiral, Wire-O® and perfect binding; folding; stitching; scoring; perforating and trimming services for the trade. You can reach Milt at 206/682-2558.
© 1997, Seattle Bindery. Reprinted from Northwest Trader, May, 1997.