The Alfreton, Derbyshire-based business, which mainly prints publications for dog shows and dog-related magazines, took the new machine in June for an undisclosed price. It is listed at £18,995. 

Director Susan Smith said the investment had been made to help cope with an influx of short-run, fast-turnaround jobs and was an upgrade on its Sulby three-clamp binder, which has now been decommissioned.

The binder was supplied by Nottingham-based Terry Cooper Services (TCS), which took on the machine for distribution in May along with the Bagel iLam Pro B3 laminator.

Smith said the binder had so far proved useful for both single-page binding jobs and folded sections, which is the reason she initially wanted to get rid of the Sulby. 

She said: “I’d been looking at PUR binding and fell of my chair when I heard the prices. I outsourced some work and didn’t like how much I paid for that so I asked around to see what was available and TCS, who service our guillotine, said they were getting this new one in."

The single-clamp automatic binder runs at speeds of between 300bph and 450bph, taking books at up to 58mm thickness. It has an automatic suction feeder with built-in cover creasing, two glue cylinders with a glue tank, a jogging station to prepare book blocks for binding and automatic book-thickness detection that sets up the width of the book spine.

Smith added: “You can use the end bit as a creasing machine, offline this is good when you are only creasing small amounts. We have kept a Heidelberg Cylinder, which we use for cutting, creasing and perforating for longer run work, so this was an added bonus really.” 

TCS sales manager Dean Stayne confirmed that Higham was the first to take the machine and said things were going really well with it so far.

Founded in 1945, Higham also runs Heidelberg litho presses, Konica Minolta digital machines and a range of finishing kit. 80% of its work is for dog shows and it says it has produced publications for every major dog show at some point since its inception.