A number of plastic spiral binding filament and coil  suppliers produce materials that comply with CPSIA legislation.   Make sure that your suppliers also can confirm through an independent, accredited U.S. lab that all of its products are lead-free and phthalate-free.  Ask them to provide you with CPSIA Certificates of Conformity on the products you use to bind your books.

Use consumer safe products in all your bindery and finishing work.

And make sure that you communicate your use of safe products to your customers!

In our ongoing search for environmentally friendly products, we have found a new biodegradable shrink film.  It is a polyolefin heat shrink film that degrades over a 3 to 5 year period (as compared to a regular shrink film product that can take hundreds of years in the landfill to decompose).

Sourcing this product in North America was a significant challenge.  We had to go global!  The product is used in the U.K. and that’s where we first found it; but it is manufactured in France. We tracked it to the U.S. and found a sales office in Eastern U.S. who was handling it.  We’re from the West Coast of Canada so we needed to locate a distributor closer to us.  We found one in Edmonton, Alberta.

After running some trials (and making some equipment changes), we are extremely pleased with how well the product runs and performs.  It has good sealing and shrinkage properties at low temperatures and can run on both manual and automatic equipment.

The film degrades at the end of its useful life: it fragments and oxidizes through the long term effect of light and heat. It then becomes assimilated by the soil and eventually disappears in the landfill, leaving only water, carbon dioxide and biomass.

Do the right thing: use environmentally friendly packaging materials!

A company in the U.S., MyBinding.com, is now carrying a new Eco-line recycled plastic coils. The coils are 100% recycled from scrap coils and are remanufactured in different pitches and sizes. The coils are still made from PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) and only comes in black. Speaking with Jeff McRitchie from mybinding.com, Jeff told me that the coils are made at a plant by collecting odds and loose ends of coils currently, melted, refabricated and sold to dealers for commercial use.

Historically, it was difficult to recycle coils. But a company in Brussels, Solvay SA’s R&D Center, has come up with a process called Vinyloop ® to recycle or upcycle coils. The process is done in 6 steps:

1. Composite waste is collected and brought to their plant in either Ferrara, Italy or Chiba, Japan. The material goes through cleaning (washing), increasing of surface area by cutting, grinding, and milling, and a homogenization step.
2. In a dissolution chamber, a solvent called methyl ethyl ketone dissolves the PVC and its additives. Anything that cannot be dissolved will be removed later.
3. The separation of the insoluble materials are filtered in the next tank.
4. In order to yield pure PVC material, the composite product is stripped of the solvent in a precipitation stage. Precipitation of the dissolved PVC at this stage allows the manufacturer to integrate more additives for other characteristics such as flexibility and strength.
5. The solvent that is evaporated condenses in its original chamber and is ready for another batch of material. This allows the solvent to be re-used 99.9% of the time.
6. The drying stage comes last. The aqueous solution of PVC is dried and the water is filtered to remove impurities. The new PVC is called R-PVC (remanufactured PVC) formed in pellets for ease of use. In the case of plastic coil binding, the pellets are melted and formed into coils.

Unfortunately, these coils are only available from MyBinding.com right now. You can contact Jeff McRitchie at jeff@mybinding.com with any questions or order information.

Remoistenable glue is a line of glue which is dry on the finished product and which activates when moisture is applied to seal the product. As it is an inline process on Pacific Bindery’s folding equipment, we have the ability to remoist glue, perforate, apply cold glue, slit and/or fold.

Specifications are subject to change without notice.

* Good adhesion of remoistenable glue on finished products will produce ‘fibre tear’ when the product is pulled open. Make sure important information on the printed piece (check off boxes, signatures, etc.) is positioned away from the glue strip.

There are two main types of remoistenable glue: 1) water soluble cold glue and 2) hot melt extruded glue. The type that Pacific Bindery Services uses is the hot melt extruded glue that offers benefits of running the equipment at faster speeds and does not allow additional moisture to be introduced to the sheet. As well, this glue allows the application of a thinner film of glue, causing less build-up. As the application of the strip is computer-controlled by solenoids, Pacific Bindery has the ability to start and stop the glue line with excellent precision and can also product a ‘stitched’ line of glue if required.

An important note: Hot Melt extruded glue is NOT laser printer compatible.

Remoistenable glue does not adhere properly to printed surfaces. Remoist glue areas need to be free of ink and must be free from varnishes, laminates and/or other coatings. The corresponding area that the strip will adhere to must also be free of ink and coatings.

Storage of finished products must be in a cool and dry environment. If stored in a hot or humid environment, the remoistenable glue may be activated.

We do not recommend offline cutting through a line of remoist glue for three primary reasons:

1. The build-up from the glue causes knife drag, creating different sized cut sheets;
2. Product would have to be cut in extremely small lifts to prevent stock tearing to either side of the glue line;
3. Greater wear on the cutting blade.

Please contact our production department at 604.873.4291 prior to producing the job for remoistenable gluing to determine overs requirement.

This project was a challenge from the perspective of providing a solution.  The customer had originally sent this job to another bindery.  But it was a very labor intensive project and the other bindery could not meet the delivery requirements.  The job was in-process (some of the work had been started) and had to be re-packed and shipped to Pacific Bindery Services (PBS).  The time invested in production coordination of this job was three times what would normally be required: as incoming product had to be re-sorted, inspected and then sent to the appropriate department for finishing and binding.  Our significant issue was to coordinate the job so that the pages pre-done by the other bindery were labeled and sequenced correctly and that we could integrate the pages into one cohesive book.

This job’s critical components were in achieving the cross-overs on the short and staggered sheets.  Line-ups and cross-overs were critical for the customer:  they were promoting multiple paper types with one image and carrying that image across a number of short, staggered sheets.

Cutting, collating and punching had to be done with precision to achieve the end customer’s design.  When the job arrived, parts of it were in various stages (some sheets had been cut, some folded, some punched) of in-process work.  But the majority (more than 80%) was incomplete.

Cut, fold, punch, trim, collate and semi-hidden wire-o® bind 21,000 books (our portion of the job). 6 x 9.  52 pp plus Wrap Cover.  Shrink wrap in 5s and pack 50 books per box.

5 sheets staggered, starting with 3 x 9 in ½” increments to 5 x 9.  7 sheets staggered starting with 2 ½ x 9 in ½” increments to 5 x 9.  1 short sheet 3 ½ x 9.  1 short sheet 2 7/8 x 9.  12 full sized sheets at 5 ½ x 9.  Inside text pages average 10 pt. (ranging from 9 pt to 12 pt).  Covers were manually punched; inside text pages were automatically punched.  Some of the short and staggered sheets were supplied pre-cut (not all) and were trimmed to size after punching.  18 sheets collated on the gatherer; remaining 8 short and staggered sheets hand collated in order, straight up and married together with cover.  Jogged carefully to spine and offset stacked for wire-o®.

Typically binderies do not want to do continuation-type of in-process work from other binderies.  If there is a problem, who holds the responsibility?  We agreed to take on this project to help our customer.  The time investment in the upfront material organization paid off and allowed us to complete the job on schedule and done right.  And they said it couldn’t be done!

Semi-hidden wire-o®  with ribbon book mark. 1200 books.  9 ½ x 10.  Thick book (1 ¼” thick) with double thick cover (22 pt x 2) and heavyweight index tabs (22 pt).  Flysheet plus 242 pps, plus 5 tabs and wrap cover.  Collate marry, punch and semi-hidden wire-o®.  Cover and index tabs overhang text pages. Single flysheet (Translucent).

The challenge on this project was in the punching and wire-o of this thick book and the heavy weight/heavy thickness of the paper stock. The process is:  punch the double-thick wrap cover (concern about ‘tearing’ through the double thick cover but we were able to minimize) manually for control.  Hand-collate and punch the fly sheet and 5 tabs. Collate and punch the 242 pps (6 pick ups). Marry into one book and wire-o.

Cut, gather, PUR perfect bind and trim 32pp + 5 flush foldouts + cover 3000 books. This is a beautiful predevelopment piece for an upscale Madison Avenue Condo located on 66^th St. in New York. Each floor of the building only has three suites, therefore, five flush foldouts were made as a part of the design to show the three floor plans and to showcase the key shopping area in Madison Avenue.

The difficult part of this booklet is in the binding of the five flush foldouts. Since the foldouts were full sized and flush at face, they were supplied to us pre-folded to final size for our binder. When gathering the signatures, we had a team of handwork specialists pre-gather all the pages and then hand-feed the signatures into the binder. This ensures the highest quality binding because we control the pages and sheets that go into the book and minimize wastage. The design of the book includes images and text that crossover from one page to another. As you can see from the samples we’ve provided, the crossovers from one page to the next are perfectly lined up. This gives the book a seamless look throughout. Because the crossovers were folded and bound so beautifully, if there weren’t the small triangular corners cut out, you would not have known there was a foldout flap.

Cut, fold, gather, stitch, and trim 44pp + 6pp cover 5000 books. Then refold inside back cover to form as inside front cover with a gusset. This piece was designed with functionality in mind as there are a number of design features that help the user use this piece effectively. For example, there are coloured tabs throughout the book that line up with the coloured panels on the inside of the back panel. This acts as a Table of Contents when the extra panel is folded out in opposed to a traditional Table of Contents in the front of a book. Aside from being colour-coordinated, the bindery work for this book requires critical lineups and cross-overs for the Table of Contents to work effectively.

From a binding perspective, this job was a challenge to make as there are full size foldouts located in the middle of the book. Folding the signatures before saddle stitching required great attention to detail as the sheets all had to fold to the same size at the face. These foldouts were flush at face meaning we are not able to take a face trim to the book after saddle stitching. In order to achieve this, the book was created in two passes. During the first pass, the five flush foldout signatures were pre-gathered on the stitcher. During the second pass, these pre-gathered signatures are hand-fed into the stitcher at the centre of the book which then adds two additional four-page signatures fed from pockets before gathering the cover with the rest of the book.

After the book is finished stitching, a team of handwork specialists carefully folds out the inside back cover, forms a gusset, and folds it over the inside pages and becomes the inside front cover.

We entered six pieces into the Product of Excellence Awards this year and won four awards in the competition. They included two Best of Categories (one for Stitching and one for Adhesive Binding), one Certificate of Merit in the Mechanical Binding category and one Certificate of Merit in the “They Said It Couldn’t Be Done!” category.

While we take great pride in the quality of work we do, we could not win international awards year after year (more than 30 in the last seven years – but who’s counting!), without the opportunities that our customers provide to us – you give us exceptional work to bind and finish. Thank you.

All of the work we do is important to us and, of course, to you – we strive for perfection and continuous improvement in every job. We are proud to receive this recognition from our peers and we are proud that it reflects so well on the commitment and the skills of our employees. We share these awards with you!

Most of our staff are long-term employees and all are well trained and experienced in bindery and finishing. In addition to on-the-job training, all employees have the opportunity to gain additional knowledge – whether it’s through certified in-house training or through local industry technical programs.

For more information: 1-888-873-4291 or e-mail info@pacificbindery.com or k.bovay@pacificbindery.com.

Next week: We will showcase one of our four award pieces.

Bar codes are already very popular in our every day lives. From supermarket groceries to book store magazines, bar codes encrypt information in a small area. However, as more and more information become available, people are looking for an alternative to store more information and more character types that won’t take up more space than it does right now. QR is short for Quick Response and the technology was developed by Denso Wave in Japan and was released in 1994. It has gained international acclaim in Asian countries and is now moving its way into North America.

Advantages of QR Codes

Capacity

Unlike barcodes with information only in one direction, the QR Code is a two-dimensional code with information stored on the vertical and horizontal direction. As a result, the QR Code can hold up to 7089 Numeric data, 4296 Alphanumeric data, and 2953 Binary data. Compared to barcodes that can only hold approximately 20 digits, the QR Code is far superior to the traditional barcodes.

Footprint

QR Codes can hold the same amount of information as traditional bar codes but in one-tenth of the space it takes for barcodes. For an even smaller printout size, there are Micro QR Codes available. The symbol size ranges from 21×21 (Version 1) to 177×177 (Version 40) and grows by 4 modules/side.

Dirt and Damage Resistant

QR Codes can be restored even if the symbol is damaged or dirty. Up to a maximum of 30% of the data can be restored.

Readability

QR Codes can be read in any direction thanks to the position detection patterns. These patterns are located on three corners of the symbol and it helps reduce background interference. In addition, a single QR Code can be divided into multiple data areas then reconstructed as a single symbol when needed. This allows the user to print up to 16 symbols in a more narrow printing area.

Standardization and Use

On June 2000, The QR Code standardization received approval from ISO International. The QR Code System can be generated using QR Code Printers and software to generate the code. There are scanners that are designed for a variety of applications. Cellular phones are the most common form of QR Code scanners used in Asia as teens capture QR Code information from posters of their favourite Rock Star’s upcoming concert to advertisements on the Subway. The uses for QR Codes are limitless, groceries stores print it on their receipts, marketers print it on their ads to increase interest, and stores print it in their ads to generate maps and hours of operations. Honestly, this is such an exciting technology that I can’t wait for Canada to catch up on it!

Here are some samples of QR Codes Usage in Japan

McDonald’s in Japan Use of QR Codes

Disneyland Advertisement Using QR Codes

Courtesy of http://blog.cliffano.com/2009/05/18/qr-code-usage-in-japan/

Survey Results of QR Codes Usage in Printed Materials Japan

http://whatjapanthinks.com/2005/09/26/qr-codes-extremely-popular/

Disclaimer: Most of the information used for the blog post was drawn from the website http://www.qrcode.com/ developed by Denso Wave. Please visit their site for more information.