Saundra, Brian and I had a blast!
On Tuesday, June 2, 2009 we packed up dozens of sample spreads that we had printed (two pages that continue from one side to the other when laid out in a book) and headed over to visit Frank Millis at ExactBind. We planned to test his new lay-flat book system, which is designed for making books and albums from silver halide (AgX) prints. In our case, we created pages on our Noritsu minilab and Chromira LED printer. When we arrived, Frank was out of the office, but that didn’t matter because Luis was there. (Frank lovingly refers to Luis as the Hispanic version of “MacGyver.”) After just a few minutes we realized that we were putting the ExactBind crew at a disadvantage because we mistakenly printed our samples the same way we made prints for use with another company’s albums (without providing margins for trimming or punching registration holes).
Registration holes: The ExactBind lay-flat system works best with registration holes that are punched at the top and bottom of each page, in ½ inch margins, very close to the spine. Once punched the pre-glued spreads are mounted on two posts to maintain spine alignment. The margins with the holes are trimmed later.
Luis told us that he and Frank would be able to work around our complication, so in the meantime we started the first step: scoring the spreads down the center with a neat scoring system Frank has devised. (We saw that this scorer would also be perfect for creating folded cards printed on any number of different papers.) We learned that we should have made our first and last pages into spreads, too. The first spread needed to have the left half panel available to adhere to the front inner leaf rather than being a single page and the last spread needed the right side panel to adhere to the back inner leaf. No worries — Luis had paper they use for other applications that has adhesive on one side, so we affixed the print to half of it and let the plain paper be the backside of our end sheet. We also brought inner leaf/end sheet material that we purchased through XPEDX, so we scored and folded it, too, in preparation for the gluing step.
Blank Panels: You don’t necessarily have to leave the “extra” inner panels white – you might print a solid color or you could print an inscription for a recipient or copyright information on the first panel and maybe something like “The End” or production notes or credits on the last panel. The nice thing about silver halide paper as opposed to inkjet materials is that you don’t waste ink to create a solid color – it’s in the processing whether it’s a color or not.
When Frank arrived he immediately went into his problem-solving/creative-inventor mode. In ten minutes he and Luis created two different jigs to align our folded spreads. First we glued one side of a folded end sheet by running it through a roller/gluer — the centerpiece of the system. Once the folded end sheet was coated with the pressure-sensitive adhesive, we applied a piece of release paper to the glued side and placed it glued-side-down in the jig. Next we began coating the back of one side of the folded spreads we had scored, carefully placing it on the end sheet in the jig working from the back of the book forward until we had came to the front end sheet. Again, we put release paper on it and set it aside so we could work on the covers. (While we were admiring the gluer, we realized that it could also be used to apply glue to prints for top-mounting on matboard, which we could then roll through our Coda mounter for added permanence.)
Frank’s problem-solving/creative-inventor mode: Although Frank Millis says he isn’t an engineer, rather a software guy, don’t let that fool you. His ability to quickly assess a situation and create a solution is truly remarkable and the fact that he has Luis (someone who can make anything work with rubber bands, chewing gum and duct tape) means that whatever equipment solution Frank can imagine, Luis can cobble together pieces from around the shop to create a prototype.
After the guts of the books were aligned and adhered to each other, they went in a pneumatic press for several minutes to insure a permanent bond. Frank used some of his simulated suede material for one set of books and a cover we made on Fuji Pearl on the Hard Cover Maker. Frank was suspicious that the Pearl paper would not adhere well to the chipboard, but to everyone’s delight it was one of the best seals he had ever seen from a photograph. Once the covers were made, we took the release paper off of the end sheets and mounted them to the inside cover.
By the time we left the ExactBind showroom, we had created three 7×7 22-page books with matte finish Fuji Crystal Archive pages and simulated suede covers and one 10×10 16-page book using Fuji Pearl paper with a photo-wrap cover. Frank was especially impressed with how the Pearl paper handled the bookmaking process. It doesn’t change colors on the crease like some other papers do when they’re scored and folded, and the paper and glue were a perfect match, allowing the adhesive to hold the paper perfectly flat all the way around the edge of the book cover. The fact that fingerprints don’t show and the paper is easy to wipe clean is an added bonus. Now that we’ve seen how successfully the Fuji Pearl paper worked on the cover of the 10×10 book, we’ve decided to try making printed canvas covers (with extra UV coating for added protection) for our next set of sample books.
In our brief session, we found that bookbinding requires careful planning, dexterity and attention during the entire process, but the results are well worth the effort. The really nice part about all of ExactBind’s systems are that they are so flexible. Separate components make up the system, so you get exactly what you need to create the product that fits your and your customers’ needs. Since most of us aren’t in the full scale bindery business, creating one-of-a-kind books in a very real sense is much more art than science.
I can’t say enough nice things about Frank and his crew — we can hardly wait for our next visit.
