Jak of All Trades

The 30-year old print firm is spread across a one-acre area with lots of greenery in every corner of the compound. Jak's philosophy revolves around green printing. Add to this, it recycles the waste and paper and conserves electricity and water

Khushru Paeterasp Patel, correctly conferred 'Maharaja' by Iqbal Kherodawala in his book 50 Influences, is a quality printer ruling his empire with his noble print mantras

Religious at heart, Jak follows the Zoroastrian tradition of worshiping fire and water as agents of ritual purity. They consider fire as a medium to gain spiritual insight and wisdom and water as the source of that wisdom

The Byculla-based firm has in-house pre-press operations and the printing plates are fired onto a Heidelberg Suprasetter

On an average, Jak processes 300 thermal plates in a day

Jak prints on a range of substrates including coated, uncoated, metallised and speciality paper and boards as well as plastics

Wohlenberg paper cutting machine allows rational cutting of different paper substrates in varied sizes

The beautiful 'Precihole Sports' calendar which grabbed a gold at the Asian Awards was printed on this seven-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 102-7 LX machine with online aqua varnish

The printing company deploys two other offset machines, a Heidelberg CD 102 six-colour Speedmaster and a five-colour Heidelberg GTO F52

The shopfloor at Jak also comprises of a single-colour Heidelberg for specific single-colour jobs

A screen printed Tarpaulin sheet. This is the perfect example of a range of substrates they can print on. The tarpaulin is usually used in seats, shed, shelter, build works etc.

The press prints many of its great works on its Grafica semi-automatic screen printing machine. Tarpaulin was printed on this machine

A rack for proper curing of finished print job. All the prints are neatly stacked on the drying rack shelves

The folding unit at Jak is powered by two folding machines, a 32-page Heidelberg Stahl folder and a GUK folding machine. These installations have helped them provide top-quality folding which is required for quality jobs

The 32-page GUK folding machine helps Jak to cater to the increasing volumes

The Polygraph 24-station gathering machine is efficient, rugged and automated

The shopfloor is equipped with an automatic Aster EL Astronic sewing machine which provides 10 stitch positions. This enables the stitching of books from a size range of 75x150mm to 320x420mm

Apart from western equipment, the print unit have also installed Indian machines. The book press machine by Joy D-Zign Engineers is one of the most exploited 'made-in-India' machines at Jak

Jak uses the case-making technology of Kolbus. Kolbus hard case binder is an automatic book binding machine that converts the book block to finished book

Gluing and IR drying section of Kolbus hard case binder

The glued books travel to the three-knife trimmer via a conveyor belt

The Kolbus performs the round back operation which is one of its special features. It can also produce square backs

Gluing operation post-round-back forming to adhere the spine and hard case

Cloth being applied on the round-back

Head and tail being glued onto the book block

Jak uses this Kolbus hard-case maker to produce hard case book covers

The hard-cases ready to be fed into the Kolbus hard-case binding machine

The casing-in machine takes the trimmed book blocks and pastes hard case covers and readies the finished book

Centre-pinning operation being performed at Jak. It is done mainly for thinner books

Jak offers gilding on books with silver or gold foil. Other than books, they also tender card beveling and edge gilding business cards or invitations. PrintWeek India managed to glance at some beautifully crafted wedding invitations with almost all possible operations at Jak like foiling, gilding, embossing, laser-cutting (outsourced), spot UV, etc. making the card a never-seen-before sample

Jak has recently added a Welbound PUR perfect binding machine to add more value to the products

Fashion magazine covers are being laminated using a thermal laminator, a second made-in-india machine at Jak

The finished books are shrink-wrapped individually or in multiple numbers depending upon customer's requirement. It ensures zero damage until it reaches the end-user

With much enthusiasm, Vincent of Jak showed us the award entry samples which are very carefully stored in the sample room

Award trophies, medals and certificate along with winning samples beautifying Jak's conference room. Till date, Jak Printers have won around 282 national and 22 international awards

A second attractive feature about Jak is the way they have kept the print history alive. This is an old letterress used hundreds of years ago

Another antique collector's item at Jak; a stone lithography press

A Gutenberg-age painting adorns the print house