The buckle folder will be installed at the end of January, a few weeks after a Drupa-purchased five-colour Speedmaster XL 75, which was part of a larger Drupa spend that totalled around £1m. Vale also bought a Duplo saddle stitcher in an “off-the-cuff” deal at the trade show.

Vale is looking to increase productivity by 30% once the Speedmaster and folder are installed. 

The folder cost just shy of £100,000, and included a part-exchange for a five-year-old Stahlfolder KH66, taking total Vale spending for the year to around £1.1m.

Vale press managing director Tom Stowe said: “We really bought it for the flexibility it gives. At the moment we have a buckle/knife combination, which is quite restrictive. It will fold 16 pages or 32 but it can’t really do unusual folds, whereas the new one gives us the flexibility to do just about everything.

“It is slightly more advanced and will give us a boost in output. The Speedmaster and the folder will be doing our existing work more efficiently, rather than doing more work.”

The folder joins two other existing folders from Heidelberg, one of which was bought in 2010 and one in 2012.

It has two buckle stations and a knife unit, handling sheets from 140x180mm up to 660x1,280mm, and taking weights up to 250gsm.

Stowe said he expects it to fold an extra 3,000 16-page A5 sections per hour compared to the previous one.

He said the Drupa-purchased Duplo had “settled down very well” and allowed Vale to take on more A4 landscape work, running it through the Duplo and moving longer-run work to its Heidelberg Stitchmaster ST 350.

The majority of Vale’s kit is Heidelberg, with all of its pre-press and 90% of its bindery coming from the German manufacturer.

It also runs a five-colour Speedmaster SX 74 with Easy Control, purchased in 2015.

Stowe said he is considering buying glueing equipment from Moll, and will probably invest in the new year.

The 35-staff outfit, which is managed by Stowe and his two brothers Edward and Oliver, turned over around £4.2m last year.