I remember the first time that I tried coil binding and attempted to use a pair of coil binding hand crimpers. Every time I tried to crimp the spiral binding it simply cut the coil shorter. Nobody had taken the time to show me how to use the coil binding crimpers properly. If they had explained it to me, I could have saved a lot of time and frustration. Hopefully I can save you some time and frustration by giving you some simple hints on crimping spiral coil. Here are a few things to remember:

1. Spiral Coil hand crimpers have a red dot on one side of them. The first thing to remember when using your coil binding crimping pliers is that the red dot always needs to face the ceiling. As long as the red dot on your pliers faces the ceiling and not the floor you will be able to crimp your coil instead of simply cutting the coil binding element shorter.

2. Hold your book parallel to the ground with the spine of the book facing towards you. By holding the book in this position it will make it easier to get a good crimp on your book.

3. Start by crimping the right side of your book. Simply use the coil crimpers to crimp the coil binding as close as possible to the edge of your book. Give the crimpers an extra squeeze to ensure that the crimpers bend the end of the coil binding over to prevent the coil binding from spinning off the book.

4. To finish the process, flip the book over and repeat the process. Flipping the book over will help ensure that the small piece of coil binding that is bent over will be pointed in and not out.

These are a few hints for crimping your coil bound books. Obviously, these instructions assume that you have a pair of specially designed coil crimping pliers. It is possible to finish documents with a standard pair of needle nosed pliers. However, standard pliers do not cut and crimp in one action meaning that you will have to manually cut the coil to the correct length and then carefully bend the end of the coil over. This can be very time consuming and since coil crimpers are relatively inexpensive they tend to be extremely worthwhile.

Hopefully these tips will make the coil binding process easier for you next time you use your coil binding machine.

Jeff McRitchie is the designer and Director of Marketing for MyBinding.com. He has written over 100 articles on binding supplies, binding covers, 3-ring binders and more.

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