Scottis Digital Printer Made Up With New Collator

Digital printers Rally Action Print of Brechin (Scotland) has installed an offline Plockmatic Docuvac collator and booklet making system.

Digital printers Rally Action Print of Brechin (Scotland) has installed an offline Plockmatic Docuvac collator and booklet making system.

Specialising in producing booklets, newsletters, event regulations and magazines for the motor sport and dog world, the company has resolved its problem of slowed production because of its originally installed on-line finishing system.

Rally Action uses a Canon CLC 5000 as its main print engine but the on-line finishing provided with it slowed the machine down too much so that print time became vastly extended.

"One of the biggest problems with digital output is that when the paper goes through the fuser rolls on the print machine it not only gets very hot - 181 degrees C - it also receives a very, very thin layer of silicone oil to seal it.

This causes a finishing problem because it makes the paper very slippery to handle and a lot of friction fed machines in the finishing department, just would not lift it," said Rally Point managing director Bill Sturrock.

Even if the paper did reache the stitching head, when the folding blade hit it and the rollers were pushing it up into the guillotine end, the cover got separated from the body.

The result was that the cover would be quite silky to handle and would get ripped because the rollers at the folding end would grab the cover and not take the insides, which would slip out.

"We then looked around at air feed systems and we tried numerous machines.

I took samples of work to printers in our area to try different offline finishing machines.

The only one we found where we could get a high reliability factor from was BABS' Plockmatic Docuvac.

Our turnaround time is very short - same day or 2-3 days - and we are under constant time pressures.

Finishing is a key part of our role, and with saddle stitching that's where the Docuvac comes into it's own," added Sturrock.

Most of the magazines the company produces are on 100gsm bond or 120gsm silk or similar, and the covers are produced on 170gsm or 190gsm silk.

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