DuraCoil EL Electric Coil Inserter

Staff Review

Tamerica Duracoil EL Electric Spiral Coil Inserter Review

Overview:

• The Tamerica Duracoil EL is a high quality and innovative electric spiral coil inserter that is designed to help you spin coil binding spines onto your documents.
• If you look at the different coil inserters that are available on the market, they all look similar and work the same. However, the Duracoil-EL is the exception.
• This machine includes a number of interesting features and completely new concept for inserting coils onto your documents. In fact, it even deals with several problems created by most other coil inserting machines.

Strengths / Features:

• When they designed the Duracoil EL, Tamerica decided to use a single roller instead of two rollers. As a general rule, a dual roller design is usually more effective than a single roller. However, the Duracoil EL uses a different type of roller. This changes things. The roller on the DuraCoil EL is larger than the rollers on any other coil inserter that I have seen. Additionally, the roller has a unique set of grooves carved in it. These grooves are designed to give the roller traction and to prevent it from becoming smooth over time. In testing this roller design, I believe that it is as effective or more effective than most dual roller coil inserters.
• When you look at the Duracoil-EL you will notice that there is a yellow/orange strip at the base of the roller. This is a special Teflon coated inserting strip. Teflon which is known for its durability and non stick properties is used in the strip to help ensure that the coils spin freely when placed on this strip. Most coil inserters require you to hold your document in the air while you insert the coil. With this machine, you use the Teflon coated plate to guide your book and your spine. This is especially helpful when using this machine to insert larger sized spirals.
• If you have ever tried to spin a coil onto your documents using a high speed coil inserter you probably know just how easy it is to spin the coil too far and too fast. If you aren’t careful you can spin it right off your document. The Duracoil-EL has a stop on the left side of the machine to prevent this from happening. It is only coil inserter that I have seen with this feature.
• With most coil inserters, using large diameter coils is a problem. In fact, many inserters really don’t work well for coils over 25mm (1 inch). The Duracoil-EL is capable of use with spirals up to 40mm in diameter. This is impressive.

Weaknesses / Limitations:

• The stop plate on the left side of the machine is fairly effective in keeping users from over-inserting their coils. However, it makes it difficult to use this machine for inserting onto documents that are longer than eleven inches. Most users insert their coils from right to left. If your document is longer than eleven inches the stop plate will get in the way and you will have a hard time keeping it parallel to the roller.
• Binding large sized documents with spiral coil can be pretty tricky. In order to insert the coil onto the book it is essential to shape the spine of your document so that it curves at approximately the same radius as the coil that you are attempting to insert. Most spiral coil inserters include a small indented section on the document table or the top of the machine to help you shape the spine of your book. Unfortunately this machine does not have a spine former. If you bind a lot of documents with spines larger than 22mm in diameter it would probably be a good idea to consider a standalone spine former device such as the Rhino Tuff HD4170 EZ book former.

Recommendation:

• The unique design of the Duracoil-EL electric coil inserter makes this one of the favorite coil inserters that I have used.
• The large grooved roller, coated Teflon plate and coil stop all make it easy to use and highly effective for binding documents that are both large and small.
• However, organizations that need to bind a lot of documents that are longer than eleven inches may want to consider an open ended coil inserter.
• Companies who need to bind larger documents may also want to consider a standalone book former for use along with this machine.

This review was written by Jeff McRitchie who is the director of marketing for Mybinding.com. Jeff has written more than three hundred articles and more than two hundred reviews on Binding Machines, Binding Supplies, Report Covers, 3-Ring Binders, Index Tabs, Laminators, Laminating Supplies, Paper Shredders and Paper Handling Equipment.