There are many reasons to love three-ring binders. A popular way to store a lot of information, three-ring binders make it easy to access documents and files subject to frequent updates. Binder inserts can be single drilled sheets, drilled sleeves with pockets, drilled booklets, drilled formed media-holding pouches and more. That's a lot of drilling.
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Advantages
Loop stitching is the ideal booklet binding style for bound material meant to be inserted and used in a ring binder. Why? Here are two good reasons:
- It lies flat. The "loops" are formed on the back of the saddle wire stitch. Which mean the pages lie flat when opened, even if still in the rings! This is one advantage that drilling doesn't offer. Outside a binder, saddle stitching will lie as flat as most binding styles. When a drilled booklet is bound inside a ring binder, however, the rings will restrict its functionality. The bottom line is that loop stitched pages lie flat atop of the rings for very easy reading.
- Copy Layout Flexibility. Drilled booklets need at least 3/4" gutter margin (or more, if possible) so copy can be seen when pages are partially opened while contained within the rings. With loop stitching, copy can be placed closer to the backbone, so this planning issue is avoided.
Planning Considerations
- Spoilage. Compared to regular saddle stitching, loop stitching will spoil more product during both makeready and production. Since the spacing between loops is critical, when a loop stitching head misfires, the book becomes unrepairable, hence higher spoilage rates. How high? Spoilage can easily be double or triple that of a comparable saddle stitched book. Ask your bindery services professional for suggested spoilage allowances for each of your loop stitch bound projects.
- Product width. Because to its positioning above the ring, the pages of a loop-stitched book will stick out farther on the face than drilled material of equal size. Consider making the backbone to face dimension smaller to ensure its contents remain flush or tucked inside the binder.
- Loop size. If the binder rings are oversized in diameter, you'll probably need oversized loop stitches to match. Standard loop stitch heads create 6-mm loops. Special heads can also be used to create 8-mm loops.
- Book thickness. Loop stitching is meant for lighter books-we usually recommend 48 pages as a maximum page count for most projects.
The Rickard Advantage
At Rickard Bindery, we offer both a standard 6-mm diameter loop and an 8-mm diameter loop for binders with heavier rings. Discuss your project layout with our bindery experts to determine what options best fit your designs. Don't forget that Rickard Bindery has five saddle stitching production lines (up to 12 pockets) at your service. Ask us about Z folded stitching designs and our oversized and undersized binding capabilities.
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