Creating your own booklets may not be as
difficult or costly as you may have imagined. In the following review we will
take a look at some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Martin Yale
BM101, a booklet maker that we found rather easy to use and
inexpensive.
Creating your own booklets may not be as
difficult or costly as you may have imagined. In this review we will
take a look at some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Martin Yale
BM101, a booklet maker that we found rather easy to use and
inexpensive.
Strengths:
It must be said that
perhaps the most impressive thing about the BM101 is the price point.
While there are certainly more powerful machines out there, and some
that are perhaps a little bit easier to use, the vast majority of those
machines will cost you two to three times as much as the BM101. In
fact, at its current price of under $700, we have no problem stating
that the BM101 is the least expensive automatic booklet making machine
that is currently available on the market. For a nice, solidly built
USA-made machine, that is pretty impressive indeed.
We found
the BM101 is remarkably easy to use. By the use of the size guide that
is printed on the work surface of the machine, you can determine the
positioning of the staplers. Then you simply align your sheets by
utilizing the grid. The stops center themselves, so you always know you
are doing your stapling in the correct position. After you have the
papers in place, you can lower the lever and staple the document. After
the document is stapled, all you have to do is reverse the folding
lever and hold it down. The machine will take your booklet and fold it
for you. Just like that, you have a booklet. It really couldn't be
simpler, and we were very pleased with the results.
With the
BM101's two staplers and four stapling positions, the user will be able
to produce several different sizes of documents depending on what size
paper is used. Most users will likely be using eleven by seventeen inch
paper to produce letter size booklets. However, there are many other
sized booklets that can be created with this machine.
Weaknesses:
While
the staplers that the BM101 uses are of high quality, they are, after
all, simply your standard heavy-use manual staplers. Thus, they are
subject to jamming or other issues. One thing we found useful is to
always use high quality staples. Regardless of the measures you take,
there is always the chance that you may have to replace these staplers
after awhile, especially if you use the machine frequently and for high
volume projects.
The BM101 states that it can handle 10
sheets of 20lb paper at a time. However, we found that it was a little
bit of a struggle to get it to fold the maximum amount of sheets. For
that reason, you might find the BM101 a little easier to use if you
stick to documents that are perhaps nine pages or less in thickness,
especially if you are going to use a heavier stock for the cover of
your booklet.
The stapling heads, as we stated above, are
manual. That might get a little tedious for larger jobs, but for the
moderate use for which this machine was built, it should work just
fine, and the price simply can't be beat.
If you are interested in purchasing the Martin Yale BM101 Automatic Booklet Maker for your office or print facility, you should really check out MyBinding.com.
They offer a great price on this machine and they even offer Free
Shipping on all orders over $75. Plus, they carry a huge selection of
other Booklet Makers and paper handling equipment from manufacturers
such as MBM, Martin Yale, Intimus, Formax, Challenge and Dynafold.
Check them out today!
