January 2010 - The Strength of Sewing, the Flexibility of Adhesive: Introducing Thread Sealing

No matter what you’re buying, it’s great to have more choices. If you’re searching for the right binding solution for an important book project, new choices can become your competitive advantage.

Side sewing, perfect binding, PUR adhesive binding, case binding, Otabind… Muscle Bound offers plenty of binding choices for cased-in hard cover and soft cover book applications. Now, you can add a new one to your list: Thread sealing. By combining the strength of sewing with the flexibility and efficiency of adhesive, thread sealing is a highly versatile and cost effective solution. Let’s take a closer look at this binding style.

What is Thread Sealing?
In this process, plastic-coated thread is stitched through the spine of a signature, which is then heated to seal the thread. The result is a super-strong signature that’s ready to be gathered for adhesive binding. Thread sealing can offer several advantages for your book projects:

• Strength and Durability - Thread-sealed books are comparable in strength to Smyth-sewn volumes, and significantly stronger than standard hot-melt perfect-bound books
• Spine Flexibility - Thread-sealed signatures require no milling or grind-off prior to binding, allowing books to lay flatter than perfect-bound and side-sewn volumes
• Seamless Crossovers - With no grind-off at the spine, page-to-page crossovers appear seamless
• Fast Production - Thread sealing is performed inline during folding using specialty equipment
• Cost Efficiency - By eliminating the time-consuming extra step of sewing, the efficiency of thread sealing translates into average cost savings of more than 20% compared with Smyth sewing

When Should I Specify Thread Sealing?
If you or your customers love the strength and appearance of Smyth sewing, thread sealing can be a desirable and cost-effective alternative. Examples include cookbooks, children’s books, technical manuals, yearbooks, media guides and other reference materials.

The Muscle Bound Advantage
Let us help you leverage the exciting advantages of thread sealing. Our newly-installed Stahl thread sealing equipment delivers industry-pacing quality and production speed for this new capability. Combined with our perfect binding, PUR adhesive binding, Otabind, case making, side sewing and related services, Muscle Bound Bindery is your complete hard cover and soft cover binding headquarters.