Smoother folds keep quality high on recycled papers

Who spends over $10,000 to make a prettier crease on a piece of paper?

Well, apparently we do. Green printing is just the beginning of our process – finishing is every bit as important to assuring a quality result. We’ve always done a good job with scoring, but when we saw what a real knife-and-die crease looked like, we had to have it in our bindery. So we made the commitment to a Morgana Auto-Creaser.

A traditional score is accomplished using a wheel and collar on a set of roller shafts. The idea is to break the fibers of the sheet and stretch the paper so that when the fold is made, the sheet doesn’t crack. This is usually sufficient, but occasionally even a scored paper shows some cracking, especially when there is solid ink crossing the fold or the paper is folding against the grain. Other factors such as high post-consumer recycled content and digital printing only make the problem worse. Further, because it is guided by a side guide down the edge of the sheet, the accuracy of a score is never quite perfect enough for us.

The Morgana, on the other hand, creates a perfectly smooth crease using a male and female die, and a lot of pressure. This forms a precise valley that looks like a miniature book spine. Even when creasing heavy recycled card stock across the grain, there is virtually no cracking. The machine uses electronic eyes to precisely stop the sheet at each crease location, and the results are incredibly accurate.

We could have bought a Harley, but we’re just geeky enough that the Creaser seemed more appealing. After using the machine for less than a month, Andrew, our bindery manager, commented that he really didn’t know what we did before acquiring it. Not only have we eliminated our scoring issues, the Creaser makes all of our subsequent operations trouble-free. The folder flies through jobs with critical color breaks, and the booklet-maker never misses exacting cross-overs.

Obviously we are committed to very high quality standards, and we think we should continue to invest in our process, even when the economy gets tough. Our work demands precision and our customers deserve it. So next time you pick up a printed job, take a close look at the folding. Then stop in and ask us for a demonstration of our new Morgana Auto-Creaser.