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Akiles Duomac 421 4:1 Coil And 2:1 Wire Binding Machine Review

*The Akiles Duomac 421 is a designed to provide organizations the choice between three different styles of binding.

*It produces two different hole-patterns. This allows companies to choose the style of binding that is the best fit for different types of deliverables.

*The Duomac 421 is built from heavy duty metal components and is designed for years of use inside a small to medium sized company.
It is an excellent binding machine that offers versatility, durability and the ability to create highly professional documents on demand.

Strengths / Features:

*The DuoMac 421 can punch two completely different hole-patterns. It can produce a round hole patter with four holes per inch. This is designed for use with four to one pitch spiral coil binding. It can also produce a 2:1 pitch rectangular hole-pattern which is designed for use with 2:1 pitch twin loop wire. The 2:1 pitch pattern can also be used to bind thick books using 0.400 pitch spiral coils. Thus, the two hole patterns allow the Duomac 421 to bind documents using three different binding styles.

*The 4:1 pitch punching throat on this machine has a thirteen inch throat with five disengageable punching pins. Using these five disengageable dies it is possible to bind documents with all of the most common paper sizes including: letter, legal, A4, half letter, and A5 papers.

*The 2:1 pitch punch is 14" inches long and offers fully disengageable punching pins. This means it is possible to punch any size document up to fourteen inches in length with a 2:1 pitch rectangular hole pattern.

Both punches on the DuoMac 421 have open throats. Using the open throat design, it is possible to punch documents that are longer than 13" or 14" with a two step punching process.

*This DuoMac-421 includes a heavy duty wire closer on the front of the machine. The closer is capable of handling two to one pitch wires that are between 3/16" and 1-1/4" in diameter. The wire closer on this system is made of high quality steel components and should have no problem remaining accurate over time.

*The 421 Duomac also includes a pair of coil crimpers. These crimping pliers are designed to cut and crimp the ends of your coil to finish your spiral bound documents.

Weaknesses / Limitations:

*One thing that the Duomac-421 is missing is a spiral coil inserter. Users who need to bind a few documents with coil will have no problem spinning the coils on by hand. However, inserting coils by hand is very time consuming and tedious. Organizations that need to bind documents using 4:1 pitch coil on a daily or weekly basis should definitely consider purchasing a modular coil inserter. Akiles recommends that this machine be purchased and used in conjunction with the Akiles Roll @ Coil.

*Because 2.5:1 pitch coils are so large and there is a slight variance in the pitch between the holes and the coil, they will need to be inserted by hand. This isn't a huge deal since most large coil books are assembled by hand anyway. Large sized 4:1 pitch books with also need to be inserted by hand.

*Each of the three binding styles offered by this machine have limitations in the size of books that they can bind. Four to one spiral coil is the most versatile and can be used to bind documents that are between 6mm and 50mm. However, inserting large sized 4:1 pitch coils onto your books is much like trying to insert a slinky onto the edge of a book. Two to one pitch wire binding spines are available in sizes ranging from 1/4" up to 1-1/4" (1-1/2" spines are available but the wire closer on the Duomac 421 isn't compatible with spines that large). Spiral coils that are 2.5:1 pitch (also known as 0.400 pitch coils) are available in sizes from 20mm up to 56mm and use larger filament to make inserting easier.

*The DuoMac 421 has a lot of great features. However, including so many features on one binding machine has the tendency to make that machine fairly large and somewhat confusing. Although the Duomac421 is clearly labeled , it can be a little bit intimidating to inexperienced users.

Recommendation:

*The DuoMac 421 is the only combination binding system that can handle both 2:1 double loop wire and 4:1 spiral coil.

*It gives users the ability to choose between multiple binding styles for the documents and reports that they produce.

*Both spiral coil binding and twin loop wire provide the ability to finish documents in a highly professional manner. Plus this system allows you to bind almost any thickness of document that you can image.

*However, the Duomac-421 is still a manual binding machine is really best suited for small and medium sized organizations. High volume users and large organizations should consider a interchangeable die modular binding punch with separate finishing equipment.

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