Just Perfect Binding

P.O. Box 724 • Wilbur, Oregon 97494 (outside of Roseburg)
(541) 430-6501 • jpb@mcsi.net

With over 35 years in the printing field, Gail Hanson, with her husband, Dale, have successfully been operating Just Perfect Binding, binding books since February 2004.

Our goal is to provide top quality perfect binding at an affordable price. Even if you have one book you need to get a bid on, give us a call or email us! We have come up with a more affordable tape version for 1-50 books. This version works well with the self/home publisher and smaller copy shops. Read about it here.

Please be sure to let us know when you plan on sending us your books to bind. That way I can make sure someone is in the shop to receive them.

I will periodically be updating our web site with any news about perfect binding, handmade books or vacation dates so please check back often.
Thank you!

Gail is also available for graphic design work and web pages.

To help you better figure out when to send us your books to bind, here are the dates that we will not be able to do any binding. Thank You.

We all know that some jobs will have specs that don't fit into these general guidelines. Some of the guidelines are necessary because of the way the machine runs. Following them as closely as possible will help us to produce the best looking book possible for your customer.

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The grain of the cover and insides should run parallel with the spine though the grain on the cover is more important. Grain-short text reduces a book's page pull strength and shelf life. Grain-short covers crack more easily on the edges of the spine and create a wavy spine.

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The binder will grind 1/8" off the spine, make sure there is enough of a margin inside to read the text. Starting the printing 3/4" from the spine allows room for the 1/8" grind, glueline and space for reading.

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The perfect binder will jog the insides and cover to the tail (bottom) of the book. On perfed signature sheets, your book will be jogged to the folded end.

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There will be at least 1/8" trim all the way around the book. A book sent to us on 8.5" x 11" 2-up or 5.5" x 8.5" will need to be skinny trimmed and therefore the finished book size may end up being 5.25" x 8.25".

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Please send plenty of extras for setup and losses. 20 covers and 10 guts should be enough for most jobs. Please advise if you definitely need a set amount.

You may also send blank paper that matches exactly what is in your book (same size, stock & amount of sheets) and some blank stock that matches your cover. We can get the glue in balance with the blank covers while also giving us a pretty close idea as to where the spine should be. This can help to assure that we give you the amount of books you requested.

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The signatures need to be collated on top of another, not inside. Signatures must be perfed at the folds to allow any air to escape and minimize any chance of wrinkling..

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Send a previous sample when possible.

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A differnet colored slip sheet is required between each book unless the text is spine marked.

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If you send the covers, we figure they are all good to use so please check through all of them to make sure they are good to use. If we see any covers with obvious imperfections, we will not use them but we can not guaranteed that all bad covers will be caught and pulled out.

•	Make a clean guide and gripper mark on a cover.
•	Uncoated stock will produce the best books. Text stock weight should be the same throughout the book (let me know if you need to mix stocks. eg. 50 sheets of 60# offset and 10 sheets of 20# bond).
•	For the minimum width of the cover, measure the width of your guts, multiply by two (a front and a back cover) and add the thickness of the spine. Call us if you would like to have the size of the spine determined by the amount of pages and kind of stock.
•	We can bind from 1 sheet plus a cover to 1-1/4" thick.
•	Minimum cover size: 11" x 7".
•	Maximum book size: 12" x 12"
•	Please no spine printing on books with a 1/8" spine or less.
•	Unless you specifiy an exact amount to run on overs, we will bind everything you send and charge you accordingly.
•	Consider a 80# cover if you plan on laminating the covers. A 10 pt laminated cover is very stiff to bend around a thin book. (It is possible to do though.) The thinner the book, the cover tends to roll around the spine instead of getting a crisp bend. With thin books, the cover should be grain-long to prevent a wavy spine.
•	If covers are printed on the inside, the side the glue will adhere to, it is important that ink, varnish, and other coatings be left off the glue area. This includes side glue as well as the spine. We will regretfully have to turn down a job with covers printed on the inside. We know our glue does not stick to ink/toner.
•	Any time the cover has heavy coverage in a dark or metallic ink, it is best to laminate, UV-coat or dry-trap-varnish it. For lamination, specify stay-flat laminating film, and avoid polypropylene because it scratches too easily.
•	Please send extra cartons for repacking the finished books.
•	Please add extra time to your job for delivery.
•	We do not suggest using 20# bond for the text. It is inconsistent in it's results. We will bind it if that's what your customer wants but try to use at least a 60# offset. It would also be best if you made sure the grain of the cover ran parallel to the spine.

Things We Need to Know When Doing a Bid.
We need to have all text blocks come to us already collated, cut down to the pre-finished binding size with a slip sheet between each book.
Click here for paper thickness.

When you call us for a bid, we will need to know the following:

Quantities

Amount of pages and sheets ~ We like to know both amounts to make sure there is no mistake on the actual amount of sheets in your book. We will figure out the spine width and price based on the amount of sheets and the kind of stock used for the text. Click here to see some paper thicknesses.

The stock the insides are being run on, what size are they going to come to us and are they in signatures or text blocks..

The stock the cover is being run on and what size are they going to come to us, eg. 1 up 12.5" x 19" or 2 up 19" x 25".

Will we be doing any additional cutting to the covers or text?

Are the covers laminated?

The finished size. Is it exact or is that the size before a 3-sided skinny trim?

Anything unusual or different about the stock or this job like foldouts.

The text must come to us collated and 1 up but sometimes the cover will come to us as much as 4-up. If you cut down the covers, they need to be cut uniformly from your press gripper and guide so the cover will not jump during binding. We will gladly cut the covers down for you. We do not cut down the text.

Paper Thicknesses
Here are some specific papers and their calipers. Take the caliper and muliply it by the total amount of sheets (not pages) in your book to find the text thickness. The binder will compress the spine a little more when being bound.
Capitol Bond -	20# - .0051	24# -.0059
Nekossa Bond -	24# - .005
Husky Offset -	50# - .004	60# - .0047	70# - .0054
Luna Gloss Book -	70# - .0032	80# -.0037	100# - .0047
Luna Matte Book -	60# - .0036	70# - .004	80# - .0046
Centura Dull Book -	80# - .0039	100# - .0049
Centura Matte Book -	70# - .0040	80# - .0047	100# - .0059
Accent Opaque Text -	60# - .0046	70# - .0052	80# - .0061
Astrobrights Text -	60# - .0048
Royal Fiber Text -	70# - .0054	80# - .0061
Here is one paper company web site where you can look up a paper that they carry and find the caliper.