IFS has already taken orders for the Horizon StitchLiner MkIV, the upgraded and improved version of the best selling StitchLiner MkIII. This was launched in 2017. Its replacement was launched at Igas at the end of last year.
A demonstration machine will be delivered to Horizon’s European headquarters near Hamburg in the summer with the first deliveries due before the end of the year to printers that have been quick to put their names down for early installations.
“There are three key differences between the two models,” says IFS technical sales director Jason Seaber. “This includes developments that first appeared on the StitchLiner MkV, the version linked to a roll feeder. The idea is to improve performance and improve product quality. This comes from a lengthened section of nipping rollers after the plow fold section which creates a tighter fold than before to improve the spine and the appearance of the final product.
“The connection to Horizon’s IceLink cloud based software is now standard, rather than an upgrade as on the MkIII. And it is better able to cope with a sequence of very short run products, say 20 of the first, then 30 copies followed by 40 examples with paginations running from 16-64pp, with the length of the stitching wire changing to the optimal length.”
Horizon has fitted the machine with Hohner’s 52/8 stitching heads which have this facility. Previously changing the wire length for a stitch has been a two or three minute process. “It means users can start production immediately without wasting books as they have to cope with shorter and shorter production runs as volumes of digital print increase,” says Seaber.
The Igas demonstration also featured an integration with Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow using JDF to receive set up information and using JMF to report on job progress and status to Prinect and to an MIS. The machine was set up for litho running from collating towers, but can also be fitted with a Digital Sheet Feeder to handle precollated sheets.
Horizon plans to continue production of the MkIII alongside the newer MkV and now the MkIV.
