Process of binding a book with a hardcover

Abstract: An apparatus is described for printing characters upon a book cover with foils and comprises a character image forming section (1) for forming an image signal of characters to be printed, a character printing section (2) for printing characters upon the blank material (3) to be used as the book cover in toner in response to the character signals which have been formed, and a foil adhesion section (6) where foil sheets (5) each having an improved adhesive characteristic relate to toners is superimposed upon the front blank material (3) with the characters printed and then the foil sheet (5) is heated and compressed on the book cover. The foil printing operation may be completed by peeling away the foil sheet (5) from the cover sheet (4) which has been taken out of the foil-applying section (6).

Description: The present invention relates to a process of binding a book with a hardcover. Generally, a bookbinding operation is carried out in accordance with a process wherein pages of a book are adhered to each other with adhesive to form a book block, and then a relatively rigid cover i.e., a hardcover is bound to the the book block with adhesive, and a title, the author of the book etc. are printed on the front or rear cover and/or the spine of the book usually in color. Such printing of a book cover is usually carried out by employing a so-called stamping process wherein metallic types are individually applied to a metal frame known as a chase, and then a foil such as a gold leaf or the like of predetermined color and a blank sheet to be formed as the book cover are placed on the metal type which have been piled one upon the other, with heat then being applied thereto by means of a heater. The foil stamping operation as above-described in the prior art is both a highly specialized and expensive job requiring a greater number of metal types and a manual job, especially skilled one is handling and composing the types. However, since no alternative process has been available to be employed in place of this conventional process, the above-described process has remained common practice. The present invention provides an entirely novel process to be applied in printing characters etc,, on a book cover, and its primary object is to provide a book cover binding process which may eliminate the need for composing types as is otherwise needed in the conventional process, and which may be executed in a straightforward and economical manner. The book cover binding process of the present invention comprises the steps of forming an image signal of characters to be printed, printing such characters on a blank material to be used as a book cover using toners in response to an image signal of the characters which have been formed, superimposing a foil sheet having improved adhesive characteristics relative to toners upon the blank material with characters printed, applying heat and pressure to the foil sheets for adhesion to the cover, and then removing an extra foil sheet. The principle of the present invention lies in that toners which have been printed is thermally fused, and metal foils or pigments which have been deposited on a polyester film and the like is caused to adhere to toners by applying them heat and pressure. Consequently, although the heating temperature should be higher than the level required to fuse toners, the characters may sometimes be deformed, if the temperature is excessively high. Thus, the temperature must be properly controlled. A suitable temperature is around 140°C. As can be seen from the above-described principle, although the characters to be printed must be formed by toners which have been provided through electrostatic copying, the character image can be formed optically, or alternatively by any electronic means, i.e., such as a word processor and a computer graphic machine. The foil or the pigment sheets must be selected such that they may provide an improved adhesion characteristic relative to toners, and they cannot be stuck to the book cover blank material. A preferred sheet material which is commercially available is "AIROTECH" (product name) from Too Co., Ltd. In case where pigments are relatively thin in color, it may be advantageous for them to be applied in increasing thicknesses appropriately as required so as to prevent them from becoming dark, or alternatively they can be applied beforehand in a color matching a color of an underlaying surface in the pigment layer. Any type of blank material may be used as long as it will not fuse or become deformed when it is subjected to heat, and the toner image may be printed. A preferable surface of cover blank material is flat, and in the case of grain surface, the presence of slight irregularities may be permitted as long as toner images may be printed clearly upon them. The presence of severe convex and concave irregularities on the surface may not be preferable. Several embodiments of the present invention will be described hereinbelow, with reference to the accompanying drawings. Figure 1 is a perspective view of the apparatus used to execute the book cover foil printing process of the present invention. Fig. 1 shows an apparatus for carrying out the book cover foil printing process of the present invention. In Fig. 1, reference numeral 1 represents a section for forming characters to be printed, the section 1 being adapted to form an image of characters to be printed on a screen by operating a keyboard and to output character images which have been formed on the screen as an electric image signal. The electric image signal from the character image forming section 1 is supplied to the character printing section 2. The printing section 2 consists of a laser printer, and receives the electric image signal from the character image forming section 1 to allow toner characters to be printed upon the blank sheet 3 to be used as the cover. Furthermore, the cover sheet 4 upon which the toner characters have been printed is subsequently superimposed upon the foil sheet 5 in a manner such that the printed surface of the cover sheet 4 faces the metallic foil of the foil sheet 5, and then is advanced to the foil-applying section 6. Two heating rolls are contained in the foil-applying section 6. When the foil sheet 5 and the cover sheet 4 which have been superimposed one upon the other are advanced to the foil-applying section 6, they are heated and pressurized, allowing the foil to adhere only to a portion upon which characters have been printed. When the front sheet and the foil sheet which have come out of the foil-applying section are peeled away, the foil is caused to adhere only to a portion upon which characters were printed, leaving another remaining portion blank with no foils. Thus, it is possible to print the book cover with foil characters similar to those to be provided in the conventional foil stamping operation. As above-described, in accordance with the present invention, since the need to compose types is eliminated, the book cover can be printed with foil characters in a very straightforward manner without requiring any particular skill. Consequently, the present invention may substantially reduce the cost required to print a book cover with foil characters, and thus it is of value in actual applications. While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to a preferred embodiment thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art the invention is not limited thereto.

Claims: A process of binding a book with a hardcover comprising the steps of forming an image signal of characters to be printed, printing toner characters upon a hardcover blank in response to the image signals of characters which have been formed, superimposing a foil sheet having an improved adhesion characteristic relative to said toner upon said hardcover blank, applying heat and pressure to the foil sheet and the hardcover blank to allow the foil sheet to be stuck on the character-printed portions of the hardcover blank, removing unstuck excess portions of the foil sheet from the hardcover blank and binding the book with the printed hardcover blank. A process as in Claim 1 wherein said blank of cover material has a grain surface.

Inventors: HOMMA AKIYOSHI, HOMMA, AKIYOSHI
Applicants: LIBRARY SERVICE CO LTD, LIBRARY SERVICE CO., LTD.
Application year: 1995
Main classification: B41F17
IPC codes: B42C7, G03G8, B41F17