The guillotine was purchased after Folio managing director Stewart Randall undertook an extensive review of the market, considering machines from two larger suppliers before settling on the CCM Premier.

The machine cost around £22,000 and was installed on 4 August.

Randall was mainly searching for a guillotine that could handle the dimensions required to print Folio’s fine art books whilst not having a “colossal footprint”. It is also being used to cut Folio’s new range of matted album books. 

He said: “One of the main reasons we chose it is the throat-height. We manufacture high-quality fine art books and one of our new products is a more traditional matted album and they can become quite deep very quickly.

“The pages are made of substantial paper and board so we needed a high-quality powerful guillotine that could trim these books very cleanly and could also accept a large product in terms of height. 

“One thing I discovered when searching for guillotines is that you can spend a lot of money on very fancy equipment, when in effect you are just buying a blade. The important things are accuracy, reliability and being able to get value for money, and I think the TCS guillotines fit nicely into that description.”

Randall was pleased with TCS, who he said were easy to speak with and provided all the necessary help. 

The guillotine joins a raft of other equipment in Folio’s finishing department.

The business runs seven Epson SureColor SC-P7000s, which were all obtained in a swap deal last April as part of Epson’s Print & Save scheme.

It also runs five Epson 4900s for smaller books and a Mimaki UJF-3042HG small-format flatbed for personalisation.

Founded in 2010, the Barnsley-based 22-staff outfit operates from 650sqm premises.