Binding Machine for Calendars

[cranberrycoho]

I'm looking to purchase a binding machine for putting together calendars - wondering if anyone out there does this on their own or do most people get printing companies to do for them. I just haven't been happy with the printing itself and it's a costly venture if the printing is crappy. I'd like to make large 11x14 calendars and desk calendars. Thanks Cindy

[Ken Doo]

You'll want to snoop out the right binding machine 2:1 or 3:1 coil to see which one is right for the type of work you want to do.  There are also different types of binders, but I settled on a 3:1 wire binder which allows me to put together small booklets and calendars for clients.  Try, https://www.bindingmachine.com/Wire-Binding-Machines.htm

ken

[Tony B.]

Hi Cindy, I have been making calendars for a hobby for family and friends for over 10 years.  I started with printing the photo/months and taking them to get punched/bound at office stores to punching/binding myself.

As Ken mentioned you need to know what type of binding you would like to use (normally either coil or double loop wire) and start from there.  Also, how much money you want to spend because a punch for coil or wire binding can get expensive.  I use a Coilmac 3:1 wire punch/binding machine.

Also, when you are doing something like a 11x14 calendar you will probably have to make the calendar months/days yourself.  There  are some programs for printing months/days but I never liked the look they offered and make my own using Word.  You can also find calendar templates, mostly for word, online.

The 11x14 gets tricky depending on the style you want.  I make 13x19 calendars that have a 12x11 photo on the top of the page and the month on the bottom.  I make the pages double sided so the calendar could be 6 pages, but I normally have a front page and back page so it ends up being 7 double sided pages.   To hang this calendar I use a thumb punch and  calendar hangers and bound with double loop wire on each side of the thumb punch.

I am not sure what you mean by a desktop calendar.

The easiest and cheapest way to start making your own calendars is to take a large stack of paper (8.5 x 11 double sided) to a printing store (like Kinko’s) and have them coil punch the paper only, on the 11” side.  Then buy a box of spiral binding coils, normally they come in box of 100.  Then print the months on one side of the paper and the photo’s on the other.  You will need to pay attention on where you put the photo as the photo for February will be on the back side of the Month of January.  You will also have to pay attention to the orientation as you might print the photo upside down.  After you have the pages printed you can manually spin on the binding coil,  cut them to length and bend the ends using pliers.  On the opposite side of the binding punch a center hole for hanging.

The attachments are of an 8.5x11 andd 13x19 calendar.  The 13x19 only shows the page,  at the top it would be punched and bound as I mentioned above.

Tony

[acktdi]

Last year I was looking to make my own calendars for Christmas gifts, I found this GBC ProClick P50 binding machine which works very well for 11x17 format.
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/733211/GBC-ProClick-P50-Binding-Machine/

The machine only handles about 4-5 sheets at a time, I'm using Red River's Zeppelin paper, which is heavier in weight.  It's a lot of manual labor but cost effective for me.

My calendars are bound at the top and I used a Dremel to put a 1/4" hole for hanging.  I might use a half moon cut and metal loop this year because it seems more versatile for hanging.

I used Lightroom and Photoshop to design the pages, there are some Lightroom templates available if you google for them.

[Tony B.]

Here is an image of the top of a 13x19 calendar using the thumb punch (1/2 moon notch), calendar hanger and double loop wire binding.

Also note that even for the more expensive punches you can only punch about 7 sheets at a time.

Tony