Using Spiral Coil Hand Crimpers

Crimping pliers for spiral coil are a necessary option for finishing books bound with spiral coil. The crimpers cut off excess coil, then bend the coil ends over for a professional bind. This ensures that the spiral coil stays in place and doesn't spin back off the book. Generally, you should buy spiral coils about one inch longer than the size of the book you are trying to bind so you have extra coil to crimp to on the end to finish the book properly. There are certain types of crimping pliers that make finishing much easier and help you avoid cutting the coil first then manually bending the end to make it stays securely in place.

The best spiral coil hand crimpers are marked with a red dot on one side. This aids the alignment of binding as you crimp the edges. This guide works best when facing the ceiling and keeping the spine of the book faced toward you as you crimp the coil. Spiral coil crimping pliers also assist in achieving standard throw length. The standard throw length is the length of the coil once bent over. This works great for 4:1 or 5: 1 pitch coil, the most common of coil pitch ratios. Plastic coated handles are also a great feature on crimping pliers, making them easier to hold and easier to use.

As mentioned, the throw length of these pliers is great for both standard pitch bindings, 5:1 and 4: 1, but documents with a 4:1 pitch with oversized oval holes, or 3:1 or 2.5: 1 pitch holes do not work well with these crimpers. With bigger holes, the throw length may be too short, causing the spiral coil to spin off the book. In these situations, special oversized oval hole crimpers should be used.

The crimping pliers have to be squeezed hard enough so that the end of the coil is bent over, but not too hard to actually cut the end off. It can take some practice to get the process just right, and if you are working in higher-volume applications, you will probably find the crimping process very tedious and labor intense. If this is your situation, you can purchase one of many automated crimpers on the market today. Unfortunately, however, they can range a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars and they usually require a great deal of set-up time.

A few of the newer coil binding systems include a small pair of crimpers on the machine standard. The problem may be however, that these systems can be quite expensive and may not meet your exact needs. If you use a coil binder, you should definitely have a pair of crimpers, however, so If your machine does not come standard with them, you should buy one separately, or include it in your original order. This is key for finishing your documents safely and professionally - every time

Those who work in very large volumes may want to consider other options for crimping, but before you decide, you should definitely speak with a document finishing. A specialist of this type can help you choose the options that are best for your personal application because they have the expertise on all of the equipment and can give you the best recommendation. And remember - if you work in oversized or other non-standard pitches, you should find a pair of pliers with a longer throw to work correctly on these types of projects.

No matter what your coil binding needs, crimping pliers are always a good idea - you just need to find the right pair!