UK Book Binders

‘The Perfect Fit To Binding Solutions’

Printed books are seeing something of a resurgence, and through the pandemic book sales boomed, despite a slump in the academic sector. According to the Publishers Association, print accounted for £1.7 billion sales (up 4%), which was the bumper piece of the market, with digital accounting for £418 million, through 2020 – and this market growth looks set to continue.

Weston-super-Mare based UK Book Binders offers a comprehensive bindery service that has just about everything covered, including: case binding, PUR binding, thread sewing, saddle stitch binding digital PUR binding and book lamination. Whilst many people still buy paperbacks, the hardback book has become an item that people value and treasure, whether a personalised one off or a copy of the latest novel by your favourite author.

When UK Book Binders decided to introduce a new Kolbus BF 511 line to drive higher and more efficient case binding production, a solution was also needed to increase output of the case board strip components.

The PBS 096 Board Strip Cutting Machine

The PBS 096 board strip cutter, a ‘plug and play’ semi-automatic machine used for cutting spine strips for hard cover books. It accurately and professionally cuts the spine strips from grey board and eliminates the time consuming and fiddly task of cutting spine strips on a guillotine, which can cause burred edges and also inaccurate sizes.

The machine is easy to use and set up. The operator simply loads the boards individually onto the conveyor belt and the machine indexes them and automatically cuts the boards to the pre-set size required. The upper and lower knives produce accurate, straight, and burr free strips ready for high speed automatic casemaking. The high quality strips enable trouble free feeding into the casemaker.

Superior Finish

UK Book Binders has been involved in print finishing for over 40 years and believes strongly in attention to detail, quality and customer care. Works manager Adam George describes the convenience of the PBS 096:

“The machine is extremely easy to use with make readies taking a matter of minutes. Installation was also simple, almost to a ‘plug-and-play’ degree, the unit is compact and can be moved easily with a standard pallet truck. Spines were previously being cut using a commercial guillotine and whilst the PBS 096 is not necessarily quicker at cutting large quantities it obviously allows for the guillotine to be utilised for other work and reduces stress on the knives and machine in general when cutting board. The clear advantage of the PBS 096 is that the finish is far superior to that achieved on a guillotine in respect of its accuracy and clean edges which in turn allows for improved efficiency on our case maker as the product running through it is perfectly square and uniform.”