J&M Print Finishers Ltd Frequently Asked Questions

Some of the questions we regularly get asked are answered below. If, in all our pages, we still can't answer your query, feel free to e-mail or even phone us, and we'll do our best to answer you.

The Top Ten questions we get asked are as follows. We're afraid that we cannot answer these directly here. The following questions should, however, give the information you need. 10.Can you do it now? 09.If we send it in Friday afternoon can you deliver Monday by 9.00? 08.Can you do it any quicker? 07.We're running late, can you help us out? 06.How much?! 05.The spec's changed, does it matter? 04.Can we have a few advance copies? 03.The rush is off, can you hold onto them for a while? 02.Can you give a ball park figure, the jobs about... 01.This one's really unusual, can you give us a quick price?

Styles of Wire Binding There are several styles of binding with wire: ~ Standard ~ Calendar with thumb cut & hanger ~ Tent card calendar ~ Half Canadian ~ Full Canadian Standard wire binding usually has 2 x 2pp covers with text between, and has the wire fully exposed. Variations on a theme include the covers being folded to form a throw out. or French folded. Calendars with a thumb cut and hanger, or multiple hangers for larger calendars, has the same principal as standard wire binding, but the bound edge has two separate lengths of wire either side of a hanger, retaining the hanger. If a hanger is used, there must be a corresponding thumb cut in order to turn the pages. Tent card calendars are simply wire bound in the way of standard wire binding, with the tent card bound into the wire. Half Canadian binding has the wire partially concealed behind a square spine. The cover is normally a 4pp cover, with the spine printed on which mimics perfect binding, but has the advantage of the book being able to opened completely flat without damaging the spine. The wire is exposed through the rear cover only, leaving the front cover clear to display the printed image. Full Canadian binding has the wire fully concealed by using a 6pp or 8pp cover. The cover leaf is folded back on itself to be bound into the wire, resulting in a book with a square spine and uninterrupted covers.

Canadian Binding Cover Sizes The measurements below are our rule of thumb calculations for covers sizes. Firstly, for both full and half Canadian covers, calculate the thickness of the text and add 3mm for the diameter of the binding wire; For the width of the front & back cover add the width of the text to half the diameter of the wire and an extra 3mm for the spine width, and then add any extra overhang required at the fore-edge; The width of the spine for Half Canadian covers is equal to the wire diameter The width of the spine for Full Canadian covers is equal to the wire diameter plus 4mm.

Everything you ever wanted to know about calendar binding (well, almost...). As far as we are concerned, there are two primary types of calendar - wall hung or desk standing. Wall hung calendars - these can be bound with wire with a hanger, or produced as 'fold, stitch & trim' with a single hole drilled in the foot to hang the calendar by. With the wire bound variety, the binding is in two pieces either side of a hanger, which has a matching 'thumb cut' cut into the text (see the punching guide above). Hangers come in two shapes 'Euro' and 'Half Round' - we only use the half round variety. The standard hanger length is 70mm, but hangers can be up 500mm for very wide calendars. For the extra wide calendars (ie over 500mm) we recommend using two hangers equally spaced. Desk calendars are free standing calendars often referred to as 'tent card calendars'. This type of calendar is usually bound with wire, but can be bound with plastic combs (but wire is better). The 'tent card' is the structure of the calendar, and must be strong enough to adequately support the weight of the text. The tent can be formed as one piece, or in two pieces with a locking tab, both of which can be folded flat for posting. Although on most desk calendars the text leaves are square or rectangular, we can produce other shapes, including oddities such as a pyramid.

Remoist Gumming - what can we do? Re-moist gumming, also known as stencil gumming, lick & stick glue and 'that glue you use in mail outs'. Re-moistenable gluing (to be accurate) is glue that can be applied to the sheet wet, dried, and then when re-moistened becomes sticky again. This is not like latex glue or the adhesive found on 'Post-It' notes. Remoist glue is applied in any shape or pattern required by a foam stencil on a roller. We can remoist glue sheets up to SRA2 on most materials up to 250gsm. We prefer the image to be gummed not to be on the perimeter of the sheet. For best results the imposition should allow the gummed area to be towards the centre of the sheet, and where multiple images are to be gummed, the gummed are should all be on the same side of the sheet - i.e. images should be sheetwork or work & turn, but not work & tumble. We charge gumming per sheet through the machine, not per image - for an A4 mailer, it is cheaper (and faster) for us to work 4up. When planning gummed areas for mail back envelopes and the like, the heavier the material the more gum that is required.

Tab & Dividers - what can be done. Tabs & dividers can be formed by either tab cutting or die cutting. For larger runs die cutting is cheaper, and a greater variety of shapes of tab can be cut. To strengthen the tab, the sheet can be laminated, preferably both sides, or if just the tab is required to be re-inforced the we can apply 'Mylar reinforcement' prior to tab cutting. A group of tabs along a for edge is known as a 'gang' - tabs numbered 1 to 10 in 1 line would a '10 tab gang', but tabs numbered 1 to 10 as 1 to 5 and then 6 to 10 would be 2 x 5 tab gangs. We need to know this when we estimate the work to know how many tabs we are actually pricing: 1 x 10 gang tab has 5 tab positions, the 2 x 5 gang tab has 3 tab positions.

Materials we supply Given the right price, we will supply just about anything. Realistically, we often get asked to supply backing board and plain sheets, whilst we do, many established printers may find that they can get a better price from their regular paper merchants than we can/ We also supply the sundry bits for finishing including acetate sheets; mechanical fixings such as interscrews, rivets and eyelets; and packing materials. Through our partner campanies we can offer other services such as laminating and mounting where required. We don't supply anything that is printed - i.e. ring binders or inserts etc, but are quite happy to insert finished print into such items.