Pune's Unique Offset opts for PUR; buys Welbound’s PUReBind and Diploma folder

The Pune-based commercial printer Unique Offset has put into service Welbound’s single-clamp PUReBind perfect binder and a Diploma folding machine in a bid to bolster its finishing department.

12 Jun 2014 | By Rushikesh Aravkar

In the past month, the Pune-based firm, has shifted 90% of its print jobs from hotmelt perfect binding to PUR binding, producing over 6000 PUR bound books in May.

“Majority of our jobs consist of souvenirs and coffee-table books printed on heavy grammage art paper and hence their binding has to be section sewing followed by perfect binding. This dual operation increases the time consumed for one job plus the final product looks shabby when the sewing threads are shown in the middle of centre-spread images,” said director, Mandar Thakurdesai.

Thakurdesai added, “In addition, when the sewing happens against the grain, the needle marks can be seen prominently, adding to the shabbiness.”

In a quest to find a solution to this problem, in Drupa 2012, Thakurdesai came across the technology of PUR binding, which was a potential answer to Unique’s query. Thakurdesai said, “We started exploring this new technology with five different vendors, however, since the technology was new then, having local support was critical. Therefore we visited Welbound’s factory in Thiruvananthapuram twice to understand the intricacies of PUR binding.”

Thakurdesai showcased an interesting print job of 14x12inch using special textured paper and centre-spread images with heavy patches of shades of green. It is a 28-page brochure with two gate folds produced for a real estate client. 

“It was a critical job since it was specialty paper, which we were using for the first time. We suggested PUR binding since section sewing would make it ugly for this premium brochure and back-to-back pasting would not be feasible since the paper is textured,” said Thakurdesai.
 
"With Welbound's system we are also able to accept the jobs that were sent to Hyderabad or Mumbai since quality finishing was not assured in Pune," added Thakurdesai.
 
He further said, "We can finish around 1200 books in a shift of eight hours. The production is less when we compare it to our four-clamp perfect binder, however, since we are able to eliminate time consuming section sewing process, the time to complete a job is reduced significantly."
 

When PrintWeek India spoke to Thakurdesai, he was excited about the on-going print job being printed on his shopfloor. It is a coffee table book on Lokmanya Tilak to be unveiled on 15 June celebrating 100 years of release of Lokmanya Tilak from Mandale jail. The print job is 164 pager printed on 130gsm art paper with a run length of 4000 copies. “If not for PUR binding, we would have missed this opportunity of producing this job,” added Thakurdesai.

Established in 2001, Unique offset, today housesfour-colour Komori LS440, two single-colour Shiva and Heidelberg machines, a four-clamp perfect binder, three cutting machines, two folding machines and inhouse CTP system.