Mascot Printing sees Horizon to horizon

Building on a growth spurt, Joe Pizzo, powers up his bindery to reduce outsourcing and take control of the quality.

The NSW-based Mascot Printing is updating its old Horizon bindery with a new SPF-200A/FC-200A saddle stitching line and a BQ-270C perfect binder from the Currie Group.

According to Pizzo, managing director of Mascot Printing, both finishing lines were installed at the beginning of June and were operational within 48 hours. “It was a simple calculation of looking at what our outsource spend was and weighing up some of the logistic challenges of sending work outside and some of the quality issues you can come across through outsourcing.

“Having the equipment and keeping the expertise of that part of the process in-house gives us additional capacity to do more and still be able to rely on trade houses if and when we need them.”

The new saddle stitching line sporting Horizon VAC-60 A and C six bin collating towers also has loop stitching as an added option to complete the in-house workflow.



Loop stitching is not a standard feature but is a simple option to install. It saves drilling holes in the actual book itself and has been available with Horizon for a few years now.

Pizzo says it’s not something that too many printers offer or even binderies for that matter. “We have some demand for loop stitching. It’s small run work and one of those things that had a very high set up cost when we were outsourcing. We can now eliminate that completely because the set up on this particular equipment is very quick, and it gives us a bit of an advantage price wise.”

He found that a lot of work was moving away from the traditional style of stitching equipment to the Horizon style equipment.

Bernie Robinson, managing director for Currie Group says the SPF-200 series is Horizon’s latest finishing product first shown at PacPrint 2009. “Its gear driven rollers, compared to belt driven, provide pressure to the spine of the book when it is folded. Whereas, the BQ-270C has been around for about four years now. Its not a new product but it is popular.”

Currie Group provided training for two Mascot Printing operators to learn the ropes on the highly automated finishing lines.