three-knife trimmer
A cutting machine designed to trim all three edges
of a book in two cuts but with only one handling
of the book. The stack of books to be cut is
placed in the machine and secured by the clamp.
The fore edge knife makes the first cut, returns
to its raised position, and the other two knives
simultaneously cut the head and tail. If a book
has too much sewing swell, a shaped piece of
chipboard must be glued to the clamp to compensate
for it, so that the same pressure is applied to
both the fore edge and spine of the pile,
otherwise the pull of the knives may cause the
pile to shift due to the shearing action of the
knives exerting a diagonal pressure. The
three-knife trimmer is designed for relatively
large numbers of books of the same dimensions, as
in edition binding. See also: GUILLOTINE . (320 )
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