Rhin-O-Tuff HD-4101 EZ Spiral Coil Spine Former Review

The main reason that inserting spines onto large sized books is so difficult is that the coil doesn't have a clear path to travel.The coil is round and when you line up your paper the holes are straight. Trying to do this by hand is a lot easier said than done. This is why the Rhino HD-4101 claims to dramatically reduce the time that it takes to insert large coils onto documents It helps you to quickly and easily shape the spine of your book and holds it in place so that you can insert the coil through the holes.

If you have ever tried to insert spiral coils onto the edge of a book that is 2" thick you know just how difficult that it can be. Inserting coils onto small books really isn't that hard. However, dealing with documents that are larger than 30mm can be very challenging. In fact, I timed myself to see how long it would take me to insert a coil on the edge of a 50mm book by hand (that is how most people do it) and it took me almost ten minutes. In a production environment that would represent a huge drain on resources.

The main reason that inserting spines onto large sized books is so difficult is that the coil doesn't have a clear path to travel. The coil is round and when you line up your paper the holes are straight. This means that it is necessary to shape the spine of your book so that it matches the diameter of coil you are using. Trying to do this by hand is a lot easier said than done. This is why the Rhino HD-4101 claims to dramatically reduce the time that it takes to insert large coils onto documents. It helps you to quickly and easily shape the spine of your book and holds it in place so that you can insert the coil through the holes. I decided to put this claim to the test and see just how much time the HD-4101 saved me.

The Test:

The HD4101 spine former is actually very simple to set up and to use. It is designed for shaping books for use with 30mm - 50mm spiral coils. There are three size settings on the spine former. You simply rotate a shaft on the machine to select the size of the book that you need to shape. In my case I decided to select a 50mm (2") book so that I could test the real capabilities of this machine.

The machine has three forming tools attached to the shaft that I mentioned above. Each of the three forming tools has a small thumb screw that allows it to be moved. I set mine so that they were equally spaced along the edge of the spine of the book that I needed to form. In my case I was forming a letter sized document but the 4101 could also be used for forming longer or shorter documents.

Once I selected the diameter that was appropriate for my document and set up the forming tools I was ready to give the machine a try. I took my two inch thick book which was already punched and placed it into the machine with the binding edge facing out. The pages fit into the machine easily and the spine was formed with a convenient curve. I then proceeded to insert the coil onto the edge of the book. Although you can use the HD-4101 along with an electric coil inserter (it even bolts onto one of the Rhino inserters) I decided to try it by hand so that I could compare it to my previous inserting experiment.

I won't lie. The coil still got hung up a few times when I was trying to insert it onto the document. It would have helped a lot if I had used a punch with an oval hole pattern or larger holes. However, I was able to complete the document in approximately 3.5 minutes. Compared to the ten minutes that it took me without the 4101 this was a significant time savings. In fact, if I had to do 100 books I could save almost 11 hours of labor.

Limitations:

To be honest, I was surprised that the HD-4101 saved me as much time as it did. I was pretty impressed. However, after playing with the machine a little bit I did notice one limitation that I thought that I should note. This device cannot be used with documents that have index tabs or use index allowance sized covers. It actually shapes the outside edge of the document so that the binding edge is easily accessible. If you try to use index tabs they will keep the spine from forming properly. This is something to remember with the 4101.

As I mentioned above, inserting coils with such large coil was still not really simple with the 4101. However, if you want to make your life easier you might consider using an oversize oval punching die or try using a different pitch of coil. Spiral coils are available for both 3:1 pitch or 2.5:1 pitch (most people use this with a 2:1 pitch hole pattern) hole patterns. These larger pitch hole patterns use more rigid coil and require you to insert the coil through less holes making it much easier to finish your documents.

Recommendations:

If you use spiral coil binding and do a lot of large diameter books the HD-4101 is an absolute essential. It is the only tool of its kind that I have seen on the market and it is incredibly simple. If it could deal with documents that had index tabs it would be even better. Still, the labor savings that the HD-4101 offers will quickly allow it to pay for itself in no time at all.

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