Fineline Printing is claiming a binding boon after installing a Horizon Stitchliner 5500 equipped with twin VAC-1000 collating towers in early July.
The new system, which was sold to Fineline Printing house by the Currie Group, sees the Melbourne print house up the ante on its binding and finishing competitiveness substantially, with the new equipment replacing an older unit with a smaller capacity.
According to Bernie Robinson, Currie Group managing director, (pictured) the new Stitchliner 5500 is Fineline Printing’s first foray into Horizon finishing products, with the new machine giving the printer the ability to do saddle stitching, book block collating for perfect binding and collating for NCR (non-carbon copy paper) work – the latter of which can be run backwards through the machine, effectively allowing two jobs to run at once.
The Stitchliner 5500 can produce tight fold booklets from 2 to 50 sheets. The icon based touch screen allows for simplified operation and the job changeover is fully automated. The three-knife trimmer section produces nearly finished booklets.
At 5,500 booklet per hour and with the combined advantages of flat sheet collating, saddle stitching and three-knife trimming the booklet making system is ideal for short to mid range production runs.
Robinson says the company settled on the new unit after seeing a display of the machine for the first time in early May. The installation of the new Stitchliner follows close behind Fineline Printing’s move to expand into digital production after it installed a Kodak NexPress SX3000 in September last year along with a new CtP system.
Now, following the Kodak NexPress addition, the company offers a raft of services, including its traditional offset offering along with its digital production capacity, wide format printing and print management, along with graphics services.
This series of new investments by the company comes after former Salmat executive, Neil Collyer, paid around A$3 million to acquire the business from its founders in August last year.
The installation of the Kodak press completed Fineline Printing’s new dedicated Digital Press Department and, although Collyer said at the time that it was no small investment, he believed the new technology would ultimately pay off.
“Buying the press was a major investment financially,” he said of the new Kodak machine in September. “These presses don’t come cheap. Its arrival is testament to the faith I have in the future of print and the potential I see this new technology has created.”
The decision to team the press with the Stitchliner (pictured) underlines the widespread industry acceptance of the Horizon finishing products, no matter what brand of digital press is on the front end. The Currie Group's expertise in delivering finishing equipment to a growing range of digital presses is a defining trend in the industry.