Finishing & Screen Printing

New gathering tower for landscape brochures

Tuesday 17. September 2019 - Since 2016, the Mark III has been the third development stage of Horizons StitchLiner product family on the market. Since then, the variable saddle stitcher for industrial production has set standards in terms of precision and automation in brochure production.

Now the Japanese finishing specialist has also overhauled the gathering machine that feeds the sheets to the saddle stitcher. With individual air supply in each station, the new VAC-L600H also pulls off critical papers and formats flawlessly.
In 1989, exactly 30 years ago, Horizon introduced the first vertical single sheet gathering machine to the market. With the changing needs of bookbinders and printers, the VAC series has been continuously developed and diversified for various applications. Just in time for its 30th product anniversary, Horizon now presents the latest model, the VAC-L600H, which has noticeably improved both productivity and ergonomics, something that should please both entrepreneurs and operators alike.
The VAC-L600H has six loading stations, each of which can hold sheets up to 610 mm long. This makes the collating tower the perfect complement to the StitchLiner Mark III for producing brochures in A4 format across the board. The system can be modularly expanded to up to six towers with six stations each. This makes it possible to produce brochures with up to 144 pages. The geometry of the stations has been optimized to ensure that wide sheets can also be loaded safely and conveniently. In addition, the operator benefits from a significantly reduced noise level. A positive factor for the development of operating costs is the energy consumption, which at 1.6 kWh per tower is 30% lower than that of the predecessor models.
The main advantage of the new model is the control of the air in the stations. Individual and optimized air supply from two fans separately for each station and reliable suction drum feeders ensure safe paper feed. Overlapping, speed, suction and blowing air can be individually adjusted, enabling even critical papers and formats to be processed.
In collating mode, the VAC-L600H can process up to 9,900 sets per hour. In combination with the StitchLiner Mark III, for example, up to 6,000 A4 portrait or 5,300 A4 landscape brochures can be processed per hour. True non-stop operation is made possible by the integrated double cycle program. If a job requires a maximum of half the stations, the other half can be loaded during press operation. Before the first station runs empty, the Touch&Work controller automatically switches to the second load. The VAC-L600H can output to the left or right as desired. A pile lowering table can be connected on the right side and a bookletmaking unit on the left, for example, so that two different jobs can be processed at the same time without any conversion work.
With the integrated digital function, the VAC-L600H is also a digital feeder. Sequentially printed sheets can also be removed from all six stations and processed into sets or brochures. This makes the gathering machine ideal for hybrid production from offset and digital printing