1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is broadly concerned with improved lay-flat book products which can be rapidly and easily manufactured, even with small run quantities, as for example, of the order of 100 to 1,000 copies. More particularly, the invention is concerned with such lay-flat books as well as methods of production thereof, wherein the book is made up of a series of juxtaposed individual sheets each having a binding edge which is notched; the sheets are placed in an alternating relationship with offset notch patterns, and are preferably interconnected by application of a cold set glue into the notches with the thickness of any glue remaining on the spine being insufficient to inhibit the lay flat characteristics of the sheets of the book product. A relatively thin, flexible spine cover is adhesively secured to the spine of the book contents in close conforming relationship to the spine. In one embodiment of the invention, the spine cover is a length of flexible tape having a width somewhat but not substantially greater than the thickness of the contents of the book that is secured to the spine by an adhesive. In an alternate embodiment, the spine cover is U-shaped, flexible paper sheet material having sides equal in area to that of the sheets and a central portion of the same size as the spine. The central portion of the full cover is adhesively secured to the spine of the book contents. The spine cover preferably has a pre-applied adhesive such that the spine cover will closely adhere to the spine of the book contents without interfering with the lay flat opening properties of the book. The books of the invention may be produced in soft or hard cover versions without detracting from the lay-flat capability thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Books and periodicals are commonly bound in a “perfect binding” method wherein a plurality of pre-printed sheets of paper are gathered together in a book block. The uncut spine of the book block is then abraded or notched to create a roughened glue-receiving surface. Glue is applied along the abraded spine and a cover is applied over the book block. Other types of prior binding methods include sewing the signatures together in the well known Smythe Sewn method or attaching the signatures or sheets together with staples.
A significant problem with all of these prior art binding methods is that the books created therefrom do not open fully and lay flat. There are a large number of variables involved in any effort to produce a lay-flat book, book block or booklet, including size and number of pages, quantity and quality of print, reliability and durability of the product, and the different makeup of all plants that choose to produce this type of product with present methods of binding. Specifically, when books created by any of these prior art methods are opened, the pages assume a decidedly arcuate shape adjacent the bound edge, making it difficult for the reader to hold the book open and read the printed text that is adjacent the bound edge. This is a problem with all types of books, but is especially problematic with instruction manuals, cookbooks, workbooks, textbooks, and other types of books that are read while the reader carries on other tasks with his or her hands.
Some prior art attempts have been made to create books that open and lay flat. An early patent to Ryan, U.S. Pat. No. 379,334 of Mar. 13, 1888 illustrates and describes a book composed of sections in which each section is secured to the back separately and thereby flexibly independently of the others leaving the leaves flexible at a line parallel to and at a sufficient distance from the back to allow each to lie flat upon the others when open. However, this method relies upon the concept of creasing the individual sheets making up the book to form separate V-portions, interleaving the creased V-portions, and then joining the V-portions by stitching. The creasing and stitching operations as disclosed in the Ryan '334 patent not only are expensive and largely impractical in high-speed book binding operations, but the appearance of the open book as illustrated in the drawings of the patent is not desirable.
Kadish in U.S. Pat. No. 5,456,496 of Oct. 10, 1995 discloses a book and method of binding in which the pages are described as laying flat upon opening of the book. However, in order to accomplish this desired function, the patentee provides a woven tabbed tubular ribbon with the individual sheets being adhesively attached to the ribbon. The tubular ribbon allows the bound edges of the pages to move away from the spine of the book when the book is open, thus permitting the pages to lay relatively flat. Unfortunately, this and other prior art methods of binding books so that they open flat are complicated, time consuming, and costly and are therefore not economically feasible for many types of printed material.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,715,658 describes the production of check books making use of alternating sheets having offset notches along the binding edges of the sheet. However, these notches are of significant depth and length, and would not be suitable for a lay-flat book of general purpose. Moreover, the use of conventional hot melt adhesives in the production of check books would detract from any lay-flat capability thereof.
The present invention overcomes the problems outlined above and provides a lay-flat book product such as a book block, complete book, booklet or periodical (as used herein “book” is intended to encompass all such products). Broadly speaking, the books of the invention are made up of a plurality of individual sheets presenting the binding margin with the sheets being in face-to-face adjacency such that the binding margins define a relatively flat spine surface. Each of the binding margins includes a series of spaced apart glue-receiving notches along the length thereof, with the notches on each sheet being offset from the notches of the immediately adjacent sheet on either side thereof. In order to bind the sheets for lay-flat opening, an adhesive is applied within the notches with the amount of glue left remaining on the spine of the book contents being limited such that upon setting of the glue it does not interfere with the full lay flat opening of the book.
In preferred forms, the glue used for binding is a cold set glue not requiring heating for application. Typical types of glue of this character are the polyvinyl acetate-based glues which dry by evaporation of water to form sturdy, yet flexible bonds. Such glues commonly have a viscosity on the order of 5600 cps and a pH of 4-5. It has been found that use of cold set glues materially improves the lay-flat capability of the resultant books, as compared with conventional hot melt glues.
In addition, it is preferred that a flexible spine cover such as tape or a full cover sheet be applied over the initially generally flat spine of the adhesive-bound book such that the tape overlies the spine surface as well as at least a portion of the opposed outermost individual sheets and/or end sheets. The tape spine cover may be paper or other flexible material and preferably is of somewhat thicker stock than the sheets of the contents of the book. In lieu of the tape, a full cover sheet may be placed over the book contents with only the central portion of the cover sheet being adhesively secured to the book contents and narrow areas along the edges of the spine. The tape or the cover sheet used as an alternative for the tape serves to maintain the sheet of the book contents in close adjacent relationship without separation of the individual sheets that could otherwise occur before setting up of the glue. Furthermore, the tape or full cover sheet secured to the spine of the book contents provides support for the spine without interfering with the ability of the final book product to open with lay flat pages, prevents relative lateral shifting of the sheets until the glue has fully setup.
Better results are also found with careful selection of the length and depth of the marginal sheet notches. In particular, notches should have a length of from about ⅛-½ inches and a width of from about 1/32- 3/32 inches. More preferred dimensions are a length of about ¼ inch and a depth of about 1/16 inch.
An economical method of producing a book in accordance with the invention comprising the steps of first fabricating an unprinted web having a series of spaced apart openings along the length thereof, commonly by use of conventional web fed processing equipment. The web is then cut to produce individual marginally notched sheets. This can be done by first axially cutting along the center line of the openings or slots to create marginally notched half-webs, and the half-webs are cross-cut to create A and B sheets having marginal notches, wherein the notches of the A sheets are offset from the notches of the B sheets. At this point the A and B sheets are printed preferably using digital equipment such as one or more programmable copiers. The printed sheets are then collected to form a book with alternating A and B printed sheets in face-to-face adjacency and with the notched edges thereof in alignment to define a spine surface. Soft covers may then be added to the book block. Finally, adhesive is applied to the spine edge of the book block to furnish a quantity of glue introduced into the notches. Then the spine cover tape or full cover for the book product is applied to the spine edge of the book contents.
The present invention is directed to the production of lay-flat book products such as a book block 20 illustrated in
Broadly speaking, the book block 20 of the invention includes a plurality of face-to-face, juxtaposed, alternating individual sheets referred to as A and B sheets 22,24. Each of the A and B sheets presents a inner binding margin 26 and 28 provided with a series of axially spaced apart and inwardly extending notches 30 and 32, with corresponding tabs 30′ and 32′ between the notches. It will be seen that the notches 30 provided in the A sheets are axially offset relative to the notches 32 formed in the B sheets. Moreover, the sheets 22, 24 collectively define a spine surface 34.
The sheets 22, 24 are typically imprinted with desired text to form consecutive pages for a book or other similar product. In order to bind the individual alternating sheets 22, 24 together, glue 36 is applied into the notches 30, 32 whereby the tabs 30′ of the A sheets are bound together and similarly the tabs 32′ of the B sheets are adhered together. Preferably, the adhesive used is a cold set polyvinyl acetate-based glue. The glue is applied so that the respective notches are essentially completely filled, with the glue remaining on the spine surface 34 being of a thickness such that it does not impede or significantly interfere with the ability of all opposed sheets to open and lay flat substantially when the book product is opened. This condition is best seen in
An elongated stretch of flexible tape 38 is adhesively applied along the spine surface 34 and forwardly extending portions 40 and 42 of the outermost sheet of the book block 20 as illustrated, for example, in
Further options for the book block 20 include the provision of thicker side marginal sheets 44 and 46 which may be in the form of fly leaves or soft covers (see
It is also possible to employ hard covers with the book block 20. This is illustrated in
Best results are produced when using the notched sheets having relatively small depths and lengths. The most preferred notch configuration is a length of about ¼ inch and a depth of about 1/16 inch. The tab areas between the individual notches is likewise about ¼ inch. Longer and deeper notches, such as those depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 1,715,658, detract from the desirable lay-flat characteristics of the final products.
A preferred method in accordance with the invention involves initial preparation of a supply of prefabricated and unprinted A and B sheets 22, 24. This is most economically accomplished using web-fed processing equipment which first creates a series of axially spaced apart central slots along the length of the web, and then cuts the web to create the final sheets having the notched patterns described above. In one preferred case, a 22-inch slotting cylinder can be used to process 17-inch wide webs of paper. This creates desirable 8½ inch×11 inch A and B sheets. Referring to
As shown schematically in
Therefore, as shown schematically in
The slotted web 56 is preferably directed to a longitudinal slitting station of the web press having a slitting cylinder with a circumferentially extending slitter knife again located midway between the ends of the slitting cylinder wherein the knife is cooperable with an opposed anvil cylinder. The slitting knife is accurately located to cut each of the slots in half to form the notches 58 and 59. Circumferentially slitter knives may also be provided on the slitter cylinder outboard of the central slitter knife to provide a web of exact width, e.g. 17 in. for 8½ in. wide sheets A and B, or 10 in. for 5 in. wide A and B sheets.
Once a supply of notched A and B sheets is created, they can be utilized to quickly and economically produce all types of book products. This procedure first involves printing the prefabricated notched sheets with text or other book product content. The printing is desirably carried out using digital equipment such as one or more programmable copiers which are capable of printing on both sides of the sheets and applying page numbers.
After printing, the sheets are collected and jogged using a jogging procedure to assure full alignment of the sheets with the spine surface defined by the notched edges of the sheets being essentially flat as shown in
After the glue is set (approximately 2 hours for the preferred cold set glue), the binder boards can be removed for reuse. Next, the tape or full cover sheet is applied. Normally, it is easier to put glue on the tape or full cover sheet first followed by application to the spine and portions of the front and back pages (or covers if used) of the book block 20. Care should be taken to assure that the tape is smooth and unwrinkled, and is tightly secured all around. The book product is now finished and is ready for application of hard covers if desired.
A major advantage of the book and method of production is the ability to use conventional programmable copy machines for printing of the individual sheets making up a book or periodical. Long run publications involving thousands to millions of copies are typically prepared by printing the images on the web on a web fed press. The printed images are arranged and organized such that upon cutting the web into predetermined lengths that each length may be folded into signatures made up of eight or more printed pages. The signatures are edge cut to size, collated, and the assembled books and periodicals directed through equipment to roughen the spine of the product, a hot melt glue is applied and a cover placed over the assembly. This multi-step, multiple equipment printing and binding process is economical for very long runs, but not practical for short runs that may be as little as 100 to 1,000 editions.
The availability of programmable copy machines that are designed to copy images on paper sheets of predetermined dimensions (5½×8½ in. or 8½×11 in. which are standard operating sizes on many digital copy machines and are typical for many books and publications) are uniquely capable of being used economically and practically to produce short run printed publications in accordance with this invention. After sheets A and B are assembled in successive order with the number of sheets being equal to the number of pages of the book or publication to be prepared, the book thereby form may be place in a digital programmable copy machine that has been preprogramed with the images to be printed in successive order in the copy machine memory. The copy machine is setup in the conventional mode to print images on both sides of each sheet. Accordingly, if for example a book contains 100 two sided pages, the 200 images to be printed are digitally copied into the memory of the copier for printing on first one side and then the opposite side of successive sheets.
As a result, no collation of the sheets making up a book or periodical is required because the number of sheets of each publication is placed in the copy machine for reproduction. When that copy job is completed then a requisite number of sheets for the next publication is placed in the copier. This process is repeated until the number of books for a particular order have been printed. The books are then bound as previously described. One further advantage of this invention is the fact that a bank of copiers may be used to produce printed books, with the number of operators for the copiers being limited because the only requirement is replacement and removal of a specific stack of sheets in each copier. By staggering the operation of the copiers, the operator may simply move from copier to copier in sequence as each copier job is completed.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
379334 | Ryan | Mar 1888 | A |
438067 | Dunn | Oct 1890 | A |
657503 | Taylor | Sep 1900 | A |
1042707 | Mears | Oct 1912 | A |
1715658 | Howard | Jun 1929 | A |
1741269 | Alger | Dec 1929 | A |
1747581 | Frazier | Feb 1930 | A |
1879757 | Kusch | Sep 1932 | A |
1897839 | Gale | Feb 1933 | A |
2176815 | Tannen | Oct 1939 | A |
2455971 | Bosch | Dec 1948 | A |
2720665 | Kile | Oct 1955 | A |
2877473 | Ehlermann | Mar 1959 | A |
3292951 | Schoenberger | Dec 1966 | A |
3330718 | James, Jr. et al. | Jul 1967 | A |
3840254 | Shatzkin | Oct 1974 | A |
3925126 | Leatherman et al. | Dec 1975 | A |
4019758 | Heller et al. | Apr 1977 | A |
4184218 | Hawkes | Jan 1980 | A |
4201615 | French | May 1980 | A |
4206532 | DeLorenzo | Jun 1980 | A |
4893979 | Alpers | Jan 1990 | A |
5078424 | Kadish | Jan 1992 | A |
5078563 | Lolli | Jan 1992 | A |
5129772 | Slautterback | Jul 1992 | A |
5193851 | Honegger | Mar 1993 | A |
5207456 | Danhoff | May 1993 | A |
5261769 | Leclerc | Nov 1993 | A |
5437476 | Hutchinson | Aug 1995 | A |
5456496 | Kadish | Oct 1995 | A |
5499847 | Smith | Mar 1996 | A |
5605425 | Schaefer | Feb 1997 | A |
5632853 | Montandon et al. | May 1997 | A |
5672030 | Dean | Sep 1997 | A |
5693142 | Pedigrew et al. | Dec 1997 | A |
5722628 | Menaged | Mar 1998 | A |
5868539 | Rathert | Feb 1999 | A |
6632059 | Debrunner et al. | Oct 2003 | B2 |
6739816 | Schuder et al. | May 2004 | B1 |
7048269 | Hoarau | May 2006 | B2 |
20020182033 | Weiss | Dec 2002 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20060061083 A1 | Mar 2006 | US |