Richard Walmsley with the new PowerSquare 200.

AB Print Group of Batley, West Yorkshire, has installed a Watkiss PowerSquare 200 booklet maker.

According to director Richard Walmsley, the new machine fills a unique niche in finishing documents with higher paginations, printed digitally on the company’s Kodak NexPress toner press.  

‘At 60-plus pages our stitched books would gape open, which is not an attractive finish,’ he said. ‘The alternative was perfect binding, which added too much time and cost, defeating the object of digital print. What we needed was a booklet maker built for digital which could handle thicker books with a more professional finish.

‘We were offered a SquareBack system as an add-on to our existing booklet maker, and though the SquareBack book solved the presentation problem, it was clear to me that the process really should be an integral part of the booklet maker and not an extra. When we saw the Watkiss solution, we thought hallelujah – this is it!’  

The Watkiss PowerSquare 200 stitches, folds, spine forms and trims in one unit. The resulting books have a square spine, similar in appearance to perfect bound books. It is claimed to be unique in being able to accommodate up to 200 pages in one stitched book.  

‘In its infancy we thought of digital as apology print, as we would always have to make excuses for the quality, ‘ said Mr Walmsley. ‘Those days are over, but until we got the Watkiss machine we still had apology finishing. Now we’re proud of our digital books and far from apologising, we’re telling all our customers about our cost effective alternative to perfect binding, and the feedback has been great.’

The AB Print Group was formed in 2010 as the amalgamation of three companies, AB Co (Design & Print) Ltd, RW Reprographics and Wellan Studios Screen Print. The company now offers litho, digital and screen printing from its 1400 m2 factory and according to Mr Walmsley, the synergy between these technologies has been a key feature in raising turnover to the £3.8 million mark.

Contact: www.watkiss.com