Adjusting for 1/4 inch coils with Bind It All

I wrote most of this last night. This was before I had my AHA! moment of trimming the punched edge of the pages so that they'd fit nicely inside the 1/4" coil. It occurred to me that this could still be useful, particularly with covers, because if the edges have been wrapped, slicing off one edge could look unfinished. So here's how I adjusted my punching so that the holes would be uniformly closer to the edge....

I mentioned the problem with getting pages to lie flat when using the very small 1/4" binding wire coils with the Bind It All. The problem is that too much paper ends up inside the coil and the pages overlap.


My solution was to move the paper in such a way that the holes would be punched closer to the edge. Now granted this may make the pages a tad more prone to being 'torn out', but it's a trade off in order to have the pages turn properly. The question was how to move the holes so that they'd be uniform. This is what I did.

Let's say that the darker green cardstock is what I'm using for my project. I cut another piece of scrap cardstock (the lighter green) so that it was just over 1/16" wider than the cardstock for my project.


I then inserted that combo into the slot of my Bind It All, holding the layers in place. The light green edge goes in first.


Once you feel the leading edge reach the bottom of the slot, go ahead and press the lever as you normally would.


You can see that the edge of my darker cardstock is now only about an 1/8" wide. The lighter green cardstock has the normal edge of 3/16" that wouldn't allow pages to move properly within the 1/4" diameter coil.

To go back to my first example, pages punched this way will now lie flat.


So, the key points to remember are...

• You can use the 5/16" plastic template to set your binding width. In my experience it will close the 1/4" coil properly.
• You'll need to trim the punched edge of your pages if you want them to turn easily and lie flat. You can do this by actually trimming them, or you can punch them in such a way that the holes will be closer to the edge of the page.
• These coils look great with smaller projects, so don't be afraid to use them!

I used this process to make a small coil bound book. I'll put that in a new entry.