How to Bind Documents with Spiral Coil

If you have recently purchased or are considering the purchase of a new spiral coil binding machine you might need to know how to bind documents with this type of binding. Coil binding is one of the most flexible binding styles available on the market and is really not that difficult once you get the hang of it. Here is a simple, step by step guide to binding documents using plastic coil…

1. The first step to binding documents with spiral coil is to prepare your completed document. Before you ever use your binding machine you need to take the time to print and assemble your document. If you are going to add index tabs, a front and back cover or any other special inserts you need to insert them into you document at this point before you ever start punching.
2. After you have a completely assembled your document you are ready to select the correct size of spiral coil for your book. If you have a spine measuring device you can simply hold your completed book (do not compress the pages) up to spine measuring device. If you don’t have a spine measuring device you can use a ruler to measure the thickness of your book. Spiral coil supplies are measured in millimeters and not inches so you will need a ruler with metric sizes. Just be sure to add 2mm to the uncompressed thickness of your book to be sure that the pages will turn freely. If your document is larger than 30mm you can still bind it with spiral coil but it can be a little bit tricky (sort of like trying to put a slinky on the edge of a book). Before you attempt this you should look on the web for tips and tricks for binding thick documents with spiral coil.
3. Now that you have assembled your book and determined the correct size of coil to use you are ready to start punching. However, before you punch your first page you need to make sure that the coil binding machine is set up correctly. In order to do this you need to take a few pages of scrap paper that are the same size as the pages you are binding and make sure that the holes are centered on your document. If the holes are not centered you will need to move the edge guide slightly to center the holes. If you have a hole that is hanging off the edge of the page you will need to pull one of the pins on the front of your machine to prevent that pin from punching. After you are satisfied that the holes are centered on the page, you are ready to start punching. Depending on your machine you are going to punch your document in sections between 10-20 pages (some large punches can probably handle a few more pages than this). To get the best results, you shouldn’t punch the full capacity of your machine with every lift. You will get a cleaner punch, have less paper jams and prolong the life of your punch if you aren’t trying to punch the maximum capacity of your machine with every stack.
4. Once your documents are punched, you are ready to start assembling them. If your binding machine has an electric coil inserter on the front of it this will be a lot easier but if it doesn’t the process is essentially the same. With an electric inserter you start the coil through the first few holes of the document and then use the rollers to spin the coil through the rest of the holes. If you don’t have an electric inserter you simply spin the coil through the holes by hand. Standard spiral coils are usually 1” longer than the length of your binding edge, this will leave you with extra coil hanging off each end of the book.
5. The final step in binding documents with spiral coil is to crimp the ends of the coil so that the spiral cannot spin back off the document. A special pair of crimping pliers is used to cut off the excess coil and to bend the end of the coil over so that it can’t spin back through the holes. Crimping documents can be a little bit tricky but it is a lot easier if you remember that the red dot on your crimping pliers should always face up.

After you have finished crimping the coil on your documents your document is finished and ready use. Spiral coil binding is one of the most versatile binding styles offering more than 60 colors of binding spines, is flexible and perfect for mailing.

If you have any other questions or comments about this article please feel free to
email us at sales@mybinding.com or call us at 1-800-944-4573

Written by Jeff McRitchie
©2006 www.MyBinding.com