Peripherals or Perennials?

I spoke with a customer who was about to purchase a press. He told me that after the press was installed that he would look into peripherals. Now I know that a press is the heart of any print shop but consider this: Look around your shop and tell me what the oldest machine on your floor. It is likely to be a piece of bindery equipment, a cutter, a drill, etc.

About twenty years ago a bindery in Florida purchased a Sterling Punchmaster from us for $40,000. He was so enamored with the machine that, about five years later, he purchased a used Punchmaster, sight unseen, at an auction for $18,000. The machine, at that time, was ten years old. He has been running each machine ever since. They recently purchased another Punchmaster from us and used the machine purchased at that auction as a trade in. I am now going to rebuild that twenty-five year old Punchmaster.

Is there any press that you would be able to trade in after 25 years? In that time, how many digital engines and software packages will you go through?

This is why purchasing bindery equipment is a different process than purchasing a press. It will be around longer, so choose your equipment carefully and make sure that it is something you can grow into. I have seen, time and time again, printers who purchase inferior machinery that can barely handle the work they have now and end up having to replace their machines later. A press is like a girlfriend but a piece of bindery equipment is like your wife.  If you purchase bindery equipment based solely on price, you may be heading for a divorce.

On Demand Printing at a Museum Near You

I was recently in Spain and visited The Prado Museum in Madrid. In the gift shop I found something surprising. You could order a “high quality” digital reproduction from The Prado and have it printed there while you wait.

A touch screen computer displays the images. You then get a choice of the following: Matte Paper, Canvas, Canvas on a Stretcher, and Canvas Stretched and Framed. Prices ranged from 10 Euros to 100 Euros.

This is a brave new world. I understand that The National Gallery in London has a similar set up. 

How long will it be before all museums start printing on demand? Is this good or bad for the printing industry? Please comment.

A Show, an Open House, and a Concert

It was hurricane season here at Spiel Associates. First The PRINT Show, which was a phenomenal success, and then our open house a few weeks later. Customers flipped over our automatic Rilecart B-599 in Chicago with the world’s first automatic cover flipper. We sold the show machine and have an order for another one.

At our open house, we touted that Spiel Associates is a 50 year old company: 50 years and still punching. Rocky was on the big screen as customers saw demonstrations of our Sterling Digipunch, Coilmaster Jr. and the new Sterling Digibinder Plus. Also on hand was the full line of Graphic Whizard creasers, folders, and UV coaters. We also demonstrated their new SCC Slitter, Cutter, Creaser.

Paul McCartney was giving a concert that day, ten blocks from our office at my kids’ school: The Frank Sinatra School For The Performing Arts. I missed it but my kids loved the show. Perhaps some of you will be able to attend our next open house in the spring.

Buying Used Equipment

Some of you out there are great at buying used machinery while others of you are not so skilled. My father had a customer named Ronnie Ridgeway who ran Specialties Bindery in Maryland, both now defunct. He used to buy machines from my Dad, sell them back, and buy them again. Sometimes maybe three or four times. He didn’t care that he lost money on the machines so long as he made more money on the jobs. That’s the problem with binderies—They hang on to their machinery as if they were family heirlooms. That’s why so many binderies look like museums.

Sometimes buying on price is the best way to go, especially if you have an employee with mechanical ability. If you do not, it pays to purchase machines that are rebuilt or reconditioned. What’s the difference? “As is” means exactly that, like at an auction. “Good running” means the machine works but it doesn’t mean that it works perfectly. “Reconditioned” should mean that it works perfectly and also carries a warranty. “Rebuilt” means that it should run like a new machine, the machine gets stripped down and rebuilt with good or new parts.

Also there are some machines that are better to buy used than others. A good machine to buy used would be a drill or a punch. A bad one to buy used would be a shrink wrap machine. Recently I called a prospect who was mad as hell. He had purchased an index tabbing machine, as is, from a dealer in Idaho. He complained that it didn’t work right and he couldn’t get anyone to fix it. When I told him I would fix it, he declined. Some people ought to stay away from used equipment all together.

STORMY WEATHER

Greetings and best wishes to all of you who were, and are, caught up in the storm. If you don’t know where we are located, we are in Long Island City, two miles from Manhattan.

I can’t remember the last time Spiel Associates closed for the day but we did so last Monday. The next day we were back at work, without phone service but with internet. We were all using our mobile phones and the internet to communicate. Ten years ago this would have been even more of a disaster. On Wednesday we could make outgoing calls and on Thursday we had full phone and internet.

Many of our customers were not so lucky. Those in New Jersey and in Lower Manhattan got hit pretty hard and at the time of this writing, many are still without electricity. They have our sympathy. The printing industry has been hit pretty hard lately and this is the last thing we needed.

Our open house, scheduled for November 7^th and 8^th is still on, and has been extended to November 15^th for all of you who want to come, but can’t get away just yet.  So New York and New Jersey, let’s show the rest of the country how we can bounce back.

SEMINAR - THE BIA CONVENTION 2012:

AUTOMATING THE BINDERY PROCESS

Saul Spiel gave the following seminar at The BIA Convention, June 5th, 2012:

Welcome Binders.

There are very few crafts that were around in the sixteenth century that are still around today. In those days there were wheelwrights, blacksmiths, coopers, harpoon makers, and book binders.

Well I have good news and bad news. You have survived. Look around and give each other a nod of approval. In the past five years half of the printers in the US went under, but you are still around.

Now for the bad news: How many of you will be around five years from now? How can you maximize the odds that you will be?

The question is as it has always been. How do you balance the need for labor with the investment in automatic machinery? I will stick to two key areas: Collating and mechanical binding.

How many of you have a tower collator? How many of you are on their second or third tower collator? How many of you have multiple tower collators?

These machines are sleek, pretty, and have all the bells and whistles that you can ask for. However they are labor intensive, pricey, and have a short life span.  Consider this: These machines, on average, cost $100,000. You can purchase a used, heavy duty collator for $50,000 to $100,000. A rebuilt Sterling, Didde, or Ehlermann/Colley will last you over 20 years. These machines have deep, top-load, bottom feed pockets and never need to stop to be re-loaded.(VIDEO IS BEING SHOWN)

Of course, many of you own a floor model collator. But some of you don’t. I know a bindery that has four tower collators and collates special stock by hand. Why spend six figures for a machine that will only last five years when you can purchase a machine that will last longer, use less labor, and be able to collate a greater variety of stock? If your stitch/fold/trim work is growing, I guess it makes sense. If you want to be flexible, and do specialty work, a floor model collator is the way to go.

About 15 years ago we developed the first automatic coil binder and then we introduced the very first one with an in-line former: The Sterling Coilmaster. How many of you own an automatic coil binder? Of all of you, can any of you bind books thicker than 20mm on these machines? Our machine can bind up to 50mm. Here is a live job of 38mm books (VIDEO IS BEING SHOWN). The customer had a 300,000 run and averaged over  400 books per hour. When he was doing the job by hand he was averaging 20 books per hour per person. Not a pretty sight. Does it look familiar?

We all know that binding thick books is more time consuming than thin books. So why buy a coil binder that can only bind thin books? Here we are binding 50mm books on the Sterling Coilmaster. Can you imagine how long this would take by hand? We sold this machine to a customer who is thrilled to be binding 250, 50mm books per hour on his Sterling Coilmaster.

Also those of you who bind 100,000 books per year and are not forming your own coil are wasting your money. Firstly, when you have a job that requires 2,000 18mm coils, how long does it take you just to find the coil and make sure that you have enough? How often is that coil twisted and deformed, while still in the box? What do you pay for shipping when you have to get coil sent to you next day? The savings from buying plastic filament rather than coil on forming 200,000 coils per year, is more than it would cost to lease a coil forming machine. Most of the coil you purchase in this country is made on our machine: The Sterling Coilmaker. If your coil supplier can make money forming coil, so can you.

I once told a bindery owner in California that if he made his own plastic coil he would save $100,000 per year and the machine at that time only cost $28,000. His reply to me was; “I’m not so much interested in saving money as making money.” FYI, he’s out of business. Perhaps he never heard of the saying by the most famous printer ever, Ben Franklin, who said; “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

How many of you own a semi-automatic wire binder that can bind up to 1,000 books an hour? How many of you have two of them? How many of you have even more?

How do you guys pick what to automate? I walked into a shop about fifteen years ago. It was a bindery in Massachusetts. The owner showed me his gorgeous Muller perfect binder.  It was a 5,000 per hour machine. He told me he was about to upgrade to a 6,000 per hour machine at the cost of three or four hundred thousand dollars. So he was only going to raise his productivity by 20%. After all, look at the screen (VIDEO IS BEING SHOWN). How can you bind books faster than this?

This bindery did an equal amount of perfect binding and mechanical binding. He then showed me his mechanical binding department which looked like a museum. I suggested that he purchase an automatic wire binder that would bind up to 4,000 books per hour. He laughed. I then explained that this would raise his productivity by over 400% for a cost of about $150,000. He opted for the perfect binder. FYI, he’s not here either. He closed his doors years before the recession.

We sell the Rilecart line of wire binders, which is the broadest line in the world. Rilecart calls us the TP-480 guys. Why? The Rilecart TP-480 is an entry level machine. It competes with James Burn, Renz, GBC—all of which can bind up to 1,000 books per hour. This machine, like the others, costs about $30,000. Rilecart makes other models that bind 1,500, 3,000, and 4,000 books per hour. This is what they mostly sell in Europe. Europeans are very labor conscious. (VIDEO IS BEING SHOWN)

Most bindery owners usually opt for the slowest, most economical wire binders. They just figure they’ll throw labor at it or add another shift. It is not unusual to see ten or twelve people working six wire binders when  four or five operators could bind up to 4,000 books per hour on Rilecart’s fastest machine How much money would you save if you saved the labor costs of six workers at $10 per hour? The savings is $125,000. This doesn’t count taxes, health insurance, workman’s comp, or overhead. If we add 50% then we come to roughly $190,000, the yearly cost, which is also the one time cost of a brand new Rilecart B-599, capable of binding up to 4,000 books per hour. Add to that the six wire binders that cost $30,000 a piece at $180,000 and the savings are substantial.

I don’t understand why so many owners fail to do the math. I refuse to believe that Europeans are better businessmen than we are. So what’s the disconnect? (VIDEO IS BEING SHOWN)

I know what you are thinking. Runs are shorter now. But those large runs that are being shipped to China are now starting to come back. Besides, isn’t a 30 minute set up time worth being able to wire bind the same job in the same amount of time with less than half of the employees, or coil bind the same job in the same amount of time with a quarter of the employees?

We deal with binderies that don’t own an automatic punching machine, even though automatic punching is 10 – 20 times faster than punching by hand. We know a bindery that farms out their coil binding to a company that we once called a copy shop. How can you compete in the marketplace if printers have equipment that is just as automated, or even more automated than your own?

Don’t let this happen to you. If ever there was a time to think out of the box-- it is now. If you want to re-capture those jobs that are being shipped overseas, you’re not going to do it with the same manual equipment that can be found at the copy shop down the street, or across the pacific.

Thank you for your attention. I hope to see you all at our booth at Graph Expo in the fall.

YOU THINK THAT YOUR JOB TURNED OUT BAD?

A few months ago I was given a very thick, fancy art book.

I have a nice collection of art books, most of which are case bound. I paged through this book quickly and then set it on my book stand so that I could read it more thoroughly. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the sheets were starting to separate. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the cheese cloth, to which the sewn signatures are bound, was old, cracked and falling apart. Also, the threads from the sewing have loosened and are fraying. It is just a matter of time before the book falls apart. I also doubt that I am the only one experiencing this problem. Perhaps the glue was old or the cheese cloth was of inferior quality. This is a heavy book and at over $100, somewhat expensive.

Shouldn’t they have used a better case binding process? What do you think caused this?

Please e-mail me with your ideas on this.

The Speech Obama Should Give:

My fellow Americans, I want you all to stand up and go look in the mirror. That’s right, get up off of your chairs and go look in the mirror. Are you ready?

Ask yourselves; “Am I rich?” Yes, ask yourselves that question. If the answer is yes, you can go sit back down and change the channel. If it is not—Listen up.

There are too many people in this country who vote against their economic interests. There are too many people in this country who consider themselves conservative, who vote for Republicans just because they are Republicans. There are too many people in this country who take positions on issues of which they are wholly uniformed. We will tackle that one first.

According to a Congressional survey, more than half of you believe the recent economic crisis was caused by too much regulation. Let me repeat, the economic crisis was caused by too much regulation. Do those of you that think this also believe that government regulations caused the BP oil spill in the Gulf? Do you even remember the BP oil spill? Was it caused by too much regulation? The economic crisis was caused because there was too little regulation. Investment bankers bought mortgages from banks, sold them to their clients and then bet on whether they would fail or not. Then when the housing bubble burst, these banks couldn’t pay off their bets. This shouldn’t be legal. It wasn’t legal thirty years ago and it shouldn’t be legal now, or thirty years from now. There have to be rules. Businesses will make as much profit as the rules will allow, sometimes even that they don’t allow. Yet conservatives are balking at the very same regulations that kept the financial industry healthy for half a century.

Now look in the mirror and ask yourself if you believe in rules? If you do, you can continue listening. If not, you can change the channel.

According to a CBS news poll, over half of you think that I do not have a clear plan for creating jobs. It is to those of you I direct my next comments. Are you living under a rock? Do you ever read a newspaper? Or do you get all of your news from Fox news and Rush Limbaugh? These folks are only interested in one job—Mine and me losing it. I just proposed a comprehensive jobs bill that includes, lowering payroll taxes—Yes tax cuts. State and local governments would receive $50 billion for transportation projects, $35 billion for school, police and fire department payrolls, $30 billion to modernize public schools and community colleges, and $15 billion to refurbish vacant and foreclosed homes or businesses. All of this is deficit neutral. Do we not need these things? If we do need them, wouldn’t this be a good place to create jobs? Yes, this will raise taxes on millionaires. But we’ll get back to that later.

Is this not a plan? Every Republican in congress voted against it. As I said, they are more interested in me losing my job than finding jobs for unemployed Americans. Don’t tell me I don’t have a plan. What I don’t have is a partner in congress interested in creating jobs. Since I have been elected, Republicans have proposed 44 bills on abortion, 99 bills on religion, 71 on family relationships, 36 bills on marriage, 76 on firearms, 522 on taxation, and 445 on government investigations. Not one on jobs. Where are their priorities? We need a jobs bill.

Now look in the mirror and ask yourself if you want a jobs bill. If you do, pick up your phone or sit down at your keyboard and demand a jobs bill from your congressmen and women.

Many of you are registered Republicans. I can understand that we have our disagreements. I do not have the power to outlaw abortion and I can’t help you with your marriage or your family relations. This is not the role of government. You shouldn’t use these wedge issues to distract you from what is really important. You cannot let the conservative pundits hoodwink you into thinking I’m against everything that you are for. You cannot let the Republican Party do their best to keep the economy down just so I’ll lose my job next year. If jobs is the priority, why not tell your representatives so? There will always be time to argue about abortion later. These wedge issues are preventing you from voting for your economic interests.

Now go look in the mirror and ask yourself: Am I informed? Am I voting for or against my own interests?

Most of the members of the Republican Party have taken a pledge never to raise taxes on anyone or anything. They have tied their hands behind their backs when it comes to their obligation of governance. The tax rate for millionaires was 92% under Eisenhower, 75% under Nixon, Ronald Regan lowered taxes before he raised them again. H.W. Bush raised taxes as well. What type of statesmen would they be if they had made a pledge not to raise taxes? Do you think they raised taxes because they liked taxes? Or was it because they felt an obligation to the economy and to the American people? The top tax rate under President Clinton was 39%. What was the difference between then and now? Our economy was strong. Now it’s not. There’s less money to go around and I am turning to the most affluent of us to pay their fair share, even if it’s less of a share than it was under all of the Presidents I mentioned.

Rich people pay two different tax rates. Their salaries are taxed at 35%. All income they receive from investments are taxed at 15%. This is the lion’s share of their earnings. That is why Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Is this fair?

Now look in the mirror and ask yourselves if the rich should pay a lower tax rate than you.

Some of you call me a socialist. Well, we’re all socialists. In Europe, taxes go to pay for universal health care and free college. Here, our taxes go to subsidize rich corporations. Why are we subsidizing big oil, big agribusiness, and the pharmaceutical industry? Big Oil gets generous tax breaks for exploration and they give us token royalties for what they extract from Federal Land and Seas. Big Farms are paid not to grow. Our government invests in pharmaceutical R & D. If the research fails, we lose. If it succeeds, we pay top dollar for it on the market. They are all making record profits. It is they who are the beneficiaries of American Socialism. Our activist Supreme Court erred terribly when it extended first Amendment rights to corporations. Corporations do not fulfill the obligations of our citizenry and should not be entitled to our individual rights. They are controlling our campaigns and ultimately the laws under which we live.

Now look in the mirror and ask yourselves: Do we want corporations controlling the way we live? If you don’t trust that government will do the right thing, what wind will blow when corporations call the shots? No regulation on pollution, on the banks, on anything that would impede their profits.

This is not the America I grew up in.

Go look in the mirror and ask yourselves if this is the America that you want your children to grow up in.

Thank you and God Bless America

These Machines Were Made For Walking

Our annual Open House was very busy and we moved a good deal of machinery last week. Why?

We demonstrated a number of current generation in-line or near line machines that reduce labor. Surprised? I didn’t think so. Over the weekend I heard pundits talking about how businesses could hire right now but can’t find good people. Sound familiar?

The new Drylam ALM3220 is a single or double sided laminator that works just like a copy machine. You put the stock in, hit start and walk away. You can go get a cup of coffee, read the paper, or go over to The new MBM Aerocut slitter, cutter and creaser. This machine slits, cuts, and creases business cards, CD booklets, brochures, or anything up to 19” wide and infinite in length. Just put the stock in, hit start, and walk away. You may want to walk over to your digital printer or load up The Sterling Digipunch automatic “touch screen punch.” Simply load up to five reams of paper, hit start, and walk away. Your material will be sitting in the delivery tray on each of these machines when you return. Or, you can use the Graphic Whizard Creasemaster and UV coater in-line to produce eye popping brochures, creased, coated, and ready to go.

It’s hard to resist machines that reduce labor, and are as easy to run as these machines are. Either do these things the way you have always done them, or just keep walking.

Let Them Eat Cake

There’s been a great deal of talk about class warfare lately. Apparently the President wants to raise taxes on millionaires a couple of points. Also, the top .4% of the country’s top earners will have their earnings taxed as income, rather than on the much lower rate of capital gains. This is now known as the Buffet Rule, after Warren Buffet wrote an Op-Ed piece complaining that his secretary paid about a 33% income tax rate while he only paid about 15%.

Now to the picture above. The French Revolution was carried out against an aristocracy unmoved by the plight of the poor people living under their rule. How large was this aristocracy? .5%. So the French Aristocracy was about the same size as our capitalist aristocracy over two hundred years later. If this were class warfare, we’d be rolling out the guillotines—not asking for a fair tax rate for the wealthiest of the wealthy.

Some say that this top .4% are job creators and that a higher tax rate will hamper the creation of jobs in this country. And they are 100% right. The wealthy are creating jobs. But where?

Two weeks ago The Swiss watch company, Vacheron Constantin opened their first store in the United States. Their shelves are stocked with 55 watches, a 50 million dollar inventory. Yes that’s right, the watches sell for $905,000. Just imagine how many jobs will be lost if billionaires have to cut back and are unable to purchase million dollar watches? How many employees will have to high tail it back to Switzerland?

Meanwhile, the wealthy still have to drive over the same crumbling roads and bridges that we do. They still have to wade through the homeless after going to fine restaurants.

Time is money and we're running out of time. The wealthy are not running out of money. Perhaps it is time for these most affluent of us to pitch in for more important things than a perfect timepiece.

The Demise of The Printing Industry Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Michael Spiel Addresses The American Dealers Group

I haven’t written a blog for some time now. The malaise that ran through our industry was completely obliterated by a new found optimism and a need to automate. This has kept me quite busy.

As my brother recently said in a speech to the American Dealers Group; “We are coming off the busiest summer that our company has seen in years. Surprised? We certainly were. It seems that America has finally woken up to the fact that we need to reduce our labor to be competitive. Printers are automating more than ever before. Our smart customers are automating. Those less savvy are holding auctions.” It’s been three years since the 2008 crash. It’s time to go high or go home. Either you are going to compete in this new economy or you’re going to fold. “That’s the way we’ve always done it” is no longer an option.

This was the busiest Graph Expo we’ve seen in years. Americans are finally coming around to the notion that you can’t solve every problem with labor. The Europeans have known this for years and we are starting to catch up. We have more large shops looking at automatic double wire binders than ever before. More small shops are automating their punching and coil binding.

So look around your shop. Where are the bottlenecks? Where are your workers doing more talking than binding? How can you reduce labor with a decent ROI? If you don’t look at these things, and look at them soon, you may start looking at auctioneers.

Airport Security Is A Joke

Airport security is a joke.

I don’t know whether or not our airport security is meant to be a jobs program, theater of the absurd, or an all out attempt to bamboozle us into a false sense of security. Has anyone of those security screeners ever caught anyone once? And why do we bother? There is a one in twenty-five million chance of being killed on an airplane while there is only one in a half million chance of being struck by lightning.

Firstly we are a nation of cowards. The terrorists have changed the way we travel and continue to do so. The airlines have stopped handing out blankets due to the “Underwear Bomber.” I am sure that the airlines love this. If the FAA mandated that each passenger would have to get a blanket then the airlines would balk. Apparently terrorists will be unable to bring their own blankets to douse with explosive chemicals. Or use their clothes. We take off our shoes before screening so the “would be” Christmas Bomber strapped the juice to his leg. Perhaps the next step is we will all have to strip prior to boarding.

Recently, a retired special education teacher on his way to a wedding in Orlando, Fla., said that he was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an enhanced pat-down by TSA officers recently at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his abdomen. “I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the bag I have to seal a wafer to my stomach and then attach the bag. If the seal is broken, urine can leak all over my body and clothes.” “Evidently the scanner picked up on my urostomy bag, because I was chosen for a pat-down procedure.”

Have the terrorists won? You betcha.

Why does this country always opt for the most expensive way to solve a problem? Yes, costlier explosive detectors would be preferable to what we have now but it still won't solve the problem completely. If we trained security personnel to interview travelers prior to boarding it would cost next to nothing and be more valuable than any new technology.

When I flew to Israel, my family and I were interviewed by an Israeli in her early twenties. Since she interviewed us while we were waiting to check our bags it did not slow us down at all. It's time we learned from a country that has to worry about security a lot more than we do.

The Graph Expo show was unexpectedly busy. Almost all of the exhibitors I spoke to were thrilled with the turnout. While some exhibitors were not present, it did not keep back those interested in growing their business. Perhaps business owners are more investment savvy than those who lead us in government. Many decision makers came to Chicago to invest in the future of their business. If only our leaders would do the same. Those who do not invest in the future are doomed to wallow in stagnation and may, soon, find themselves out of business. Let us not forget that this year 100% of your capital equipment can be written off. See my previous blog on this subject.

I know that many of you do not attend trade shows. There was a time that you could visit a show locally but that time has passed. National shows like Graph Expo, On Demand, and Graphics of the Americas are important shows because without them, where would you shop? If shows like these go the way of regional shows it will mean that you will have to fly to each and every distributor or manufacturer that does not have a local dealer. Nor do they sponsor lectures and workshops to assist you in keeping up with today’s market.

So the next time a trade show comes around, think about going. The expense is nominal and a good education is worth the money.

Automate or Stagnate

I was speaking with an owner of a bindery on the west coast who I have been in contact with for about fifteen years. Naturally he cried in his beer about how lousy business was, who hasn’t?

This bindery specializes in plastic coil binding and when the conversation turned towards equipment, he told me that he was standing pat. When I asked about automation he told me that he preferred to stick with his twenty table top coil inserters. Let us not forget that these twenty coilers must be operated by 20 people. I asked him how he could compete when commercial, and even on demand printers were purchasing automatic coil binders. He told me that he hasn’t seen a drop off of business do to that. Really?

Ten years ago this very same bindery owner told me that he bound 1,000,000 books per year in plastic coil. Perhaps he was exaggerating but this time he told me that he was binding about 100,000 books per year.

Back then I tried to convince him to make his own coil. He was buying his coil locally from a manufacturer that used our machine to make his coil. They were making money doing it, why couldn’t he? I told him that he could save a minimum of $100,000 per year making his own coil by purchasing a machine that, at the time, cost only $28,000. He said that he wasn’t interested in making his own coil.

This reminded me of another bindery owner, again on the west coast, who I told would save $100,000 per year and the machine at that time only cost $28,000. His reply to me was; “I’m not so much interested in saving money as making money.” This bindery does little to no plastic coil at all any more.

Cutting costs is more important now than ever. This year, 100% of your capital equipment can be written off, so it makes the pain of equipment purchases a little easier to take. Is it difficult to invest in automation during tough times? Absolutely. Is it worth staving off a 90% drop in business? Absolutely.

What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?

Nineteen months ago President Obama was inaugurated. At this very moment leaders of the Republican party began to voice their concerns about the deficit.

We didn’t start spending money like a drunken sailor yesterday. We began ten years ago with the Bush tax cuts, passed through reconciliation. Now Obama wants to let the tax cuts for the richest 1% of the country expire and keep the tax cuts for the lower and middle classes. Is this unreasonable? Where else is the money to reduce the deficit going to come from?

Every economist agrees that if the tax cuts are allowed to expire that the budget deficit will be reduced by about 30%, 680 billion dollars over the next ten years. Otherwise, nearly all of this would go to those making more than $500,000 per year.

Is there anything we have on the table that could reduce the deficit so much? Their argument is that tax cuts is a bad idea given the state of our economy. Will the top 1% of the earning populace rush out to Walmart and Target if the tax cuts are extended or pocket the cash and put it in the bank?

Many so-called fiscal conservatives complained about the auto bail out. This is one of the most successful government programs since the New Deal. Detroit is back in business again. Many complained about the bank bailout but most of the money that the government laid out has been repaid.

When will the fiscal conservatives put their money where their mouth is? Allowing the tax cuts to expire will only raise the tax rate about 3% on the richest Americans, a rate that is identical to that during the Clinton years and lower than the rate during the Reagan years.

I may not be an economist but this is the biggest bang for the buck, deficit reduction wise, while causing the least amount of pain to those who can afford it the most.

Everything Old is New Again

So I am just back from Europe. A two week vacation got cut short when, at a fine Belgium Restaurant, a waiter dropped a croissant on my knee, shattering my meniscus cartilage. Actually, I tripped on a cobble stone curb. Why can’t they just pave their streets flat with cheap asphalt like we do here?

As women know, beauty takes effort. During my week long trip to Belgium I didn’t see any garbage, any homeless people, and the highways were beautiful stretches of road unpolluted by unsightly billboards. Okay, gas was twice the price but I’ll get back to that later. Everything was modern, even in a medieval city like Brugge. I remember traveling to Europe in the late seventies and having to make sure that I had toilet paper in my pocket should the need to use some occur. No more. Now Europe’s urban areas are more modern, cleaner, and human friendly than our cities, not to mention more beautiful.

How do they do it? As I flew out of Brussels I peered down and saw a nuclear power plant. I then thought about the fact that Denmark has become 100% energy independent (see http://www.neatorama.com/2008/01/01/energy-independence-how-denmark-kicked-the-foreign-oil-habit/). They taxed gasoline and automobiles starting in the mid-seventies and used that money to modernize their energy companies and to make their businesses and homes more energy efficient.

What did we do? We gutted the clean air act, put into place by that king of liberals: Richard Nixon. The clean air act was put in place so that when power plants modernized, they had to meet certain standards. That coupled with a lack of energy legislation ensures less efficient production of electricity. It also ensures a greater reliance on coal.

I don’t mind spending a little more for food if it’s better food. I don’t mind paying more taxes if they go to the right programs. When are we going to wake up and spend more money on our quality of life and less money on oil subsidies? When will we realize that we cannot depend on the combustion engine the way we have for the past 100 years? When will we cease rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan and start rebuilding the US?

The time may come when I visit China again and find that their cities are more modern than ours. They are on their way. Unfortunately so are we. I hope the cheap gas was worth it.

IMPERFECT PITCH

Some time ago I sold a Coilmaster Jr. to a small printer in the south. This is our automatic, table top, coil inserter. I had been working with this client for over a year. She has an unusual business. She sells books that are printed in the US and punched in Korea (At first she told me China, which she may have thought Korea was a part of). She needs to bind tens of thousands of books per year and is loathe to send them out.

When she got a serious about placing an order I had her send me a sample of the book she was binding. It was a fairly straightforward job. It was a thin book, 12mm, with an oval hole. I told her that all was fine and I sold her the machine. The only thing that was unusual was that the book was punched at .248 pitch with an oval hole. I remarked that I had never seen that before. I sent her the article I had just written for American Printer: “Perfect Pitch,” which you can read here: http://americanprinter.com/binding-finishing/printing_perfect_pitch/index.html I also sent her a couple of articles about punching for coil.

I sent my technician there who said that there was some problem with the punching. I called the customer upon completion of the installation and she told me that everything was fine and that she was happy with the machine.

A couple of weeks later I called her to follow up. She told me that she was having problems. Her operator stated that the coil entered the book but stopped halfway through as it was spinning in. I remarked that this sounded like a pitch problem. Running coil with a wrong pitch has a cumulative error effect. Then she told me something that she should have told me right from the get go: She was punching inserts here in America that had to be put into the book. The book she originally sent me had no such inserts. I told her to send me a couple of these sheets along with some of the sheets punched in Korea.

I was flabbergasted. The sheets punched here had a different pitch: .2475. Now that doesn’t sound like much of a difference but get this: The margins were different. The distance between the first hole and the head of the sheet were different. That’s not all: The distance between the spine and the row of holes were different. So, she was fighting sheets punched with a different pitch, a different margin, and a different spine to hole distance.

She then asked the bindery who was punching her job if they could match the hole pattern that was being punched in Korea. They said no. They also told her that there was no such thing as a .248 pitch.

What is a body to do? How much preparation can a salesman offer a prospective client? I would like to hear your comments. If you are interested in receiving any of the articles I had sent this customer, please e-mail me.

The Art Of Binding

Even before Gutenberg invented the printing press, books were being, written, painted and bound for hundreds of years. Books were made of stretched parchment and bound by sewing. The tradesmen of the middle ages, Coopers, Harpoon Makers, etc. are long gone but the Bookbinder is still around.

I just visited an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry.” Books of the Hours were prayer books written and drawn for wealthy laymen. This is a fine example of just such a book. It is normally on Display at The Cloisters, a branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the Cloisters, the book is bound, here it is unbound so each page can be viewed.

Also being shown was a short film made by the Getty museum for their current exhibition “The Making of a Medieval Book.” It seems that the medieval bookbinder bound books much in the same way that hard cover book binders bind books today. Once the writing and illuminating had been completed, the parchment sheets were folded and nested into groups called gatherings. The gatherings were ordered in their proper sequence and sewn together onto cords or leather thongs that served as supports. These gatherings were the forerunner of the signature.

It was a marvelous show and the illuminations are strikingly well preserved. But if you can’t make it to New York, visit the Met’s web site to see what is in the exhibition: http://blog.metmuseum.org/artofillumination/about-the-exhibition/

Further explanation and a video can be seen here: http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/making/

I have three words to say about this year’s On Demand show: Busy, Busy, Busy. We had more traffic at this show than any other in recent memory. While we had a few out of towners, most every attendee was from the east coast, northeast and mid Atlantic area. The buzz was about the new digital presses (as always) and, I am pleased to say, perfect binders.

Our company won the Best In Show award for our new Sterling Doublebinder, layflat perfect binder (http://www.spielassociates.com/DoublebinderVideo.html). This machine binds books so strong that no attendee could pull the sheets out of the book—And each one tried! There was a vast array of perfect binders at the show from the usual suspects (save for Muller who didn’t exhibit), Horizon, Duplo, and Graphic Whizard.

I am pleased to say that none of the books made on the other machines matched the pull test strength of The Doublebinder, including the new Duplo PUR binder, that sells for about four times the price of The Doublebinder. Other highlights included new digital presses. Konica won a number of Best In Show awards for their new C8000 digital which seems to be giving Xerox a run for their money. MGI also demoed a new digital press that uses no fuser oil.

It seems that the prediction of the demise of the Print Industry has been greatly exaggerated.

A New Lease On Strife

I sold a used punching machine to a customer of mine, or did I? We agreed on a price of $45,000 for a used Lhermite EX-380 with a few dies, some modifications, and installation. My customer sent off his first and last payment to the leasing company. The leasing company sent me forms to fill out, which I dutifully did. I included a picture of the reconditioned machine which you see above you. My customer’s lease was turned down, not because he didn’t have the credit but because it was a used machine.

My customer told me that he could not get a lease on a used machine from any of the leasing companies he normally deals with. Does this make sense? This machine is worth $45,000. In a few years it will be worth somewhat less. My customer had asked me to quote him on a new punch with all the accessories and the price came out to be $65,000. Should he purchase a new machine, what will it be worth in a few years, $50,000, $45,000? The depreciation is much greater on new equipment.

So at a time when businesses are strapped and turning to more used equipment, the leasing companies are turning them down. Nice, huh? It seems that the leasing companies are even more cowardly than the banks—Not to mention foolish.

Are you having trouble getting a lease? Call me up. I’ll sell you the machine AND lease it to you.