When binding hard back books with a thermal binding machine the final step is to place the cover into the crimper and tighten it down. Although this step is unnecessary when using standard thermal binding covers, it is very important when binding hard cover books. The hard back book crimper accomplishes several important tasks that are essential in providing a high quality finished book. Specifically, the crimper is designed to do three primary things:
1. The Hard Cover Crimper helps to ensure that the pages of your hard bound book are securely bound into the book. Immediately after removing your book from your thermal binding machine, place it in the bindit hard back book crimper. At this point the glue is still hot and pliable and process of crimping helps to force the glue up into the base of your book block ensuring a strong and permanent bind while securely holding the pages in place. If you don't use a crimper the pages may fall out of your hard cover books after some use.
2. The hard back book crimper is designed to properly form the spine of the hard cover book. If you look at a finished product you will notice that at the base of the spine there is an indented area that serves as a hinge allowing your book to open and close easily. The crimper takes your book while it is still hot and properly forms the spine, giving it a finished look and ensuring that your cover operates correctly.
3. The crimper is also designed to act as a cooling rack for your thermal hard bound books. This gives users a place to safely allow the hot spine to cool while ensuring that the book has enough support along the spine to achieve a superior bind.
Currently, there are two types of hard cover crimpers. A Manual Hard Cover Crimper simply uses a lever and some muscles to tighten the grip on the spine. However, a recently released pneumatic version of the hard cover crimper is designed to provide a more accurate and faster crimp for high volume users. The Pneumatic hard cover crimper uses a small air compressor to provide the power for crimping and works by simply hitting a switch.
In the absence of a hard cover crimper I have seen some customers use an oven mitt to attempt to manually form the spine. It works, but it doesn't look great and all of them have ended up buying a crimper in the end.
Have you seen those cool PhotoBooks and memory books that are produced by some of the big online photo printing companies? How would you like to be able to produce something like that yourself? Plus you can customize the front to add a full color photograph or title sheet that will really make your books stand out. This is actually something that isn't all that difficult to you. Here is a quick set of instructions for creating your own fully customized hard cover documents.
First, you will need some materials. Here is what you will need.
* A binding machine capable of binding a hard cover book.
* A cold process laminator / sticker maker (such as the Xyron Creative Station)
* The printed pages to bind into your book.
* A printed page for the cover of your book
* A hard cover case to bind the pages in
Once you have collected these items, you are ready to create your own photobook, memory book or hard cover presentation. Here are five simple steps to finishing your book.
1. Assemble all of the pages of your book and make sure that they are in the correct order. Take the pages and make sure that they are completely square and flush and add end leaves if that is something that is important to you.
2. Insert the pages for your hardcover into the hard cover case that you purchased (probably a Unibind Steelbook, Unibind Photobook or a thermal binding hard cover). Take the cover with your pages in it and place it in the binding machine. The binding machine will heat up the spine of the book and bind your pages in place. If you are using Unibind you are ready to proceed to the next step. If you are using thermal binding you will need to place your document into a special crimper before it is completed. Let the document cool while you proceed with the next step.
3. Now that your document is bound, you need to create the sticker for the front of your cover. At this point you will take your printed page for the cover of your book and run it through your sticker maker / cold process laminator. You are going to want to make sure that your laminator is equipped with a cartridge that adds permanent adhesive to the back side and it is recommended that you add a laminate to the front side (this will prevent peeling or damage).
4. After you have run the document through the laminator, it will have a peel off liner on the back of it much like a sticker does. You will want to peel this liner off and carefully apply it to the front of your book. It is very important to make sure that the sticker is square on the front of the book since the permanent adhesive will make it nearly impossible to adjust later.
5. Once you have applied the sticker to the front of the book you will need to be sure to smooth out the sticker to ensure that there are no air bubbles underneath. After you have done this your customized hard cover book is completed.
For the best results with this type of hard cover binding, I recommend using a glossy white hard cover or trying to match your printed coversheet to the color of your cover. Using this style it is also possible to wrap your printed cover around the spine of the document to add a spine print. You would want to do this after the binding process was complete so that the printing will not be discolored by the heat from the binding system.
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