machines - Reformát

What machines you can find in our shared workshop? All machines listed below are free to use as part of your membership. Book your appointment right now in the “reservations” section.

Stack cutter / Fr. B. Jizba

The manual cutting machine, which has already been around for quite some time, is used to cut a stack of paper, paperboard or cardboard. You can use it to align the edges of a handmade notebook, a stack of individual papers or sheets bound into a book block. The paper block gets cleanly aligned edges thanks to the trimming. The knife with a cutting length of 70 cm is set in motion by turning the wheel with a handle, so no great force is needed to cut. The machine can easily cut a 6 cm high stack of paper or a 2 cm high stack of cardboard.

Lever shears

The monumental dimensions of this machine suggest that it can be used to process large formats. Lever shears are used to cut individual sheets of paper or bookboard that need to be formatted into smaller pieces. They can also be used to cut bookbinding canvas to the required size. The machine has two blades, which is why it is referred to as scissors. One (arc) blade is located on the lever, the other on the edge of the work table – the cut is made by moving the raised lever downwards. Up to 5 thinner papers (80 g/m2) or 3mm thick bookbinding board can be cut at a time. The maximum length of the cut paper is 99 cm.

Manual bookbinding press

The manual bookbinding press is used to press bound books or to press the components of a book block before sewing them together. The folders of the book (folder = several sheets of paper folded in half and inserted into each other) are pressed before stitching, so that the air is forced out of the spaces between the sheets of paper and the book does not “rise up” during stitching”. The press can also be used to print linocuts. The pressure created by the two steel plates is adjusted manually by turning the wheel handle. Formats up to 40 × 50 cm and stacks of paper more than 40 cm high can be pressed.

Bookbinding table press

It is a smaller version of a manual bookbinding press, it can press bound books or book block components before sewing. It can press stacks of paper up to 9 cm high. The pressing plates have a size of 29.4 × 25 cm and can be used for pressing A5 and larger books.

Knocking press

The machine is mainly used to trim the spine of the book block, a step necessary when binding a book with a rounded spine. It differs from a bookbinding press in that it does not press in the horizontal plane, but in the vertical plane. The knocking press can also be used to clamp the sheets for gluing them together, for example when making a V2 perfect binding or tear-off pad.

Paper drill

The paper drill is used for punching bookbinding cardboard and whole stacks of paper. The machine drills through a stack of paper up to 50 mm thick without exerting much force. The drill bit is hollow, so there are no unsightly edges around the drilled holes. The workshop currently has interchangeable drill bits with diameters of 5 and 8 mm. The machine has a sliding table and adjustable side stops.

Electric sewing machine

The machine, sometimes called a wire stapler, staples sheets of paper with metal clamps. Our “bookbinding stapler” can staple up to 20 sheets (up to 40 sheets after replacing the staples) of 90 g/m2 paper, i.e. 20 classic office papers. The work table can be folded down very easily for sewing “on the canopy” and sewing V1 binding (workbook) or sewing V3 binding (block) from above. The machine can also be used to sew with hanging clamps (i.e. clamps with eyelets).

Creasing and perforating machine

The creasing and perforating machine creates grooves (creasing) or punching in the form of a broken line (perforating). Creasing the paper allows for easier folding, perforation is used for possible tearing off part of the sheet. It is possible to work with materials up to SRA3 (320 × 450 mm). The surface weight of creased papers can be up to 400 g/m2, perforated papers up to 250 g/m2. The groove width can be set to 0.8 / 1.1 / 1.5 mm.

Electric cutter

The electric cutter will help with formatting papers up to SRA3 size. It cuts bookbinding board, stacks of paper or cardboard up to 2 cm high without much difficulty. The knife is set in motion by two-hand control, by pressing two buttons. The desired trimming dimension is set by the numeric keypad buttons, which are used to enter a numeric value. This is simultaneously displayed on the digital display. The location of the cut is indicated by a light beam.

Corner rounder

The handheld corner rounder can turn sharp corners of notebooks, cardboards and bookblocks into rounded corners with a flick of a lever. The 6.4 mm radius knife cuts off sharp paper tips and leaves a rounded corner. It has an ergonomic handle, adjustable side stops and a cut-off tray that can be easily emptied after work.

Golding press

Or a goldsmith can also stamp text from metal letters (fonts) or perhaps a company logo or other image from a metal plate. Embossing creates relief patterns on the surface of the material. The depth of relief is affected by the height from which it is stamped and the amount of pressure applied. Embossing can be carried out hot or cold. In hot embossing, a coloured foil is often used, which sticks to the recessed areas of the embossed pattern, thus highlighting the stamped motif. An easy-to-use thermostat with digital display is used to set the working temperature for hot embossing.