Almost everything that comes into the Bindery from the Pressroom needs to
pass through the Folders before it is handled by the rest of our machines.
The Folder is a machine that takes the flat printed sheet and simply folds it
several times to generate what is called a "Signature".
There are several folding patterns that are common to most folded sheets.
They are 32 page, 24 page, 16 page, 12 page, 8 page and 4 page signatures. How a
sheet is folded depends on the lay-out generated in the Masking or Prepress department.
We currently operate three Stahl
folders and two MBO folders. The maximum sheet sizes of
our MBO folders are 44.5" X 66," which allows us to
fold all sheet sizes printed by our press department and most
page configurations that our planners can dream up. We are also
capable of folding "Twin lay" which means we can fold
two sections at the same time when
they are printed two-on.
We prepare the spine of the folded section, at our folders, in two ways. We use what is referred to as Burst Binding on our Perfect Binder, so we slot-perf the spine on all signatures destined for this type of binding. By perfing the spine we notch out a slot of paper along the spine that allows the glue to penetrate up into the middle pages of the section. The second type of folding will leave the spine in tact and simply folds the signature. This type of signature is used in Sewing and Saddle Stitching.
After a signature is folded, it has several destinations. It could be the Saddle Stitcher, Perfect Binder or the Collator, depending on what type of job it is.
