Bookbinding has been around for nearly 2,000 years and has evolved into various methods, including comb binding. To comb-bind a document, pages are punched with a machine, and an O-shaped spine is selected based on the number of pages. The spine is placed in the teeth of the comb binder, and the pre-punched pages are added. The spine is then closed, and the document is bound. Comb binding is flexible and allows for material to be added or subtracted later. Comb binding machines are relatively inexpensive and can be purchased for personal or business use.
Bookbinding became a craft nearly 2,000 years ago. Since then, cultures have found ways to perfect this practice, and today there are countless ways to accomplish bookbinding. Over time, books have been bound in hard binding, punch binding, heat-activated binding, stitched or stitched binding, and even hand binding. Comb binding, a punch binding method, is a relatively common binding practice in use today. Other styles of punch binding include wire binding, VeloBind®, wire or coil binding, GBC Proclick® and ZipBind®. Comb binding allows people to bind various sized documents together using a flexible plastic spine.
To comb-bound a document, the pages must first be loaded into a machine similar to a three-hole punch, but with many more holes. For manual machines, holes are punched in the document by pulling a lever. Nineteen rectangular holes are punched in Letter size documents and 21 holes are punched in A4 size documents. Comb binders typically have a set number of pages they can punch through at a time, so you may need to punch a few pages at a time rather than feeding the entire document into the machine at once.
After the document has been punched, the user should choose an O-shaped spine. Comb binding spines come in various sizes and, due to their flexibility, can be removed after the document has been bound to add or subtract material from the document. The user guides that come with comb binders typically have charts that help people choose the spine size based on the number of pages in the document. If a user’s guide can’t be found with your machine, there are several available online, as the sizes are standard.
Once the O-shaped spine is selected, it is placed into the teeth within the comb binder and, for hand-held binders, the user pulls a lever. The teeth separate the flexible spine, pulling the shape from an “O” to an elongated “C”. The pre-punched pages are now placed on one end of the ‘C’ and the user returns the lever to its original position, closing the spine and comb binding the document together.
If more material needs to be added to the document later, the book can be placed on the machine in the teeth and the user can separate the binding, take out the pages and insert new ones once they are punched.
A relatively inexpensive way to bind material, comb binding machines can be purchased for personal use or for large-scale ventures through businesses.
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