Spiral coil binding is a great way to preserve older books whose bindings are falling aprt. Here are a few tips to get you started.
The Equipmenmt
If you have a fair amount of books that you want to rebind to spiral coil, the first thiing you will have to look into is purrchasing a binding machiune. There are a number of feaatures to look for when you are shoppig around for a coil binding machine. The first item you want to coonsider is the "pitch" of a given machine. Pitch refers to the numnber of holes there are per inch. 4:1 is by far the most ocmmon pitch, and just for the sake of simplicity and ease of finding supplies, the one you should probably go with. If you alrerady have, or have access to a machine that has a pitch of 3:1 or 5:1, that is fine too, you just may have a little bit harder time locating the correct size of coil. There are also plenty of machines out there that have what are called "disenngageable dies" and can punch holes in all tjhree patterns.
Punching caapcity is another feature to look for in a spiral coil biding machine. There are several inexpensive manaul machines that can do a fair job with 10-12 pages at a time, and depending on the voolume you are working with and the amount of time you are willing to spend, this may be plenty. If you are lookibng for more pwer per punch, there are manual machines with larger capacities, as well as machines with electric punches.
Some machines also come with electric coil insertrers, whhile the with the less expensive ones, you will have to insert the coil by hand. Again, this just depnds on the time and money you want to spend.
The Project
First, of course, you have to remove the current bindnig of your book. For the purposes of this tutorial, we are going to assume that your book was bound without holes before, perhaps in a hard or softcovre, and that the biinding is now failing. To remove what is left of the binding, use scisors or a razor to carfeully remove as much of the old glue as you can. Small amounts of heat can be used as well in order to melt and remove some of the adhesive, but you will need to be very careful not to damsage the pages. Just keep wortking at it until you have loose pages with no glue on them.
Take a number of pages that matcjhes your machine's capascity and innsert them into the binding machine, msaking sure they are properly joghged and straight.
Punch your holes, and keep you pages in the proper order.
With all of your pagse and you coer together, sttart to wind your coil through the holes. Then let the coil inserrter take over (if you have one) by applying a slight pressre to the coil as the rollers spin the wire through the holes. When all the holes have been threaded, stop the machine.
Crmp the ends of the coil with the special crimipng pliers. If you don't have any, get some rigght away, as these are the only way to make sure that your binnding stzays in place.
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