Presented as a small, affordable wire binding solution for shorter run projects such as calendars, the Rhino HC 8318 is semi automated system that purports to make the process quicker and easier. It even includes the ability to bind wire hangers into your documents. We took a closer look at the HC 8318 and here we list for you what we consider to be the machine s strengths and weaknesses.
Strengths:
1. The HC 8318 is designed to make inserting and closing your binding wire much easier, making it in fact a single step process. With this machine, all you need to do is place the spine of your book inside, and put the pages on the document table. The machine does the rest. We found this to be incredibly handy as we no longer had to manually hang the pages we meant to bind together nor transport the book to the sire closer. We can see how this nearly automatic process could increase the productivity level of just about any organization to a major degree.
2. The HC 8318 gives users the ability to bind a vast array of differently sized documents. The preset book stops are for all the common sizes, from eleven by seventeen to five and a half inches. Using its custom settings, however, any custom size in between is possible for this machine. That s some pretty amazing versatility, and we have to say that we were pretty impressed.
3. The series of notches that Rhino placed on the edge of the HC 8318 s document table make it very easy to choose the correct wire size for your project. All you have to do is find the smallest notch that your document can comfortably squeeze into, and use the wire size that is indicated.
4. One of our favorite features of the HC 8318 is its ability to insert calendar hangers as a part of the process. On the machine, there is a slot that the calendar hanger sits in, and all the user has to do is to place the hanger on the machine at the proper stage of the process.
Weaknesses:
1. Though the HC 8318 works great with three to one pitch wires that are up to nine sixteenths of an inch in diameter, it can t be used with two to one pitch wire. You will need to either purchase a standalone manual wire closer that can do two to one pitch or look for another machine.
2. Our main difficulty with the HC 8318 is that we found it a bit of a chore to set up for use with different sizes. We should note that the machine worked fine in every setting that we tried, but the process of setting it up in the first place has ten steps, and each one must be completed exactly correctly for the machine to work at all. If you are a larger organization with technical operators, they should be able to figure it out without any problems. However for the more casual and occasional user, the process can present a bit of a hurdle. Proper training, and/or a few practice runs should resolve that issue though.
Author Resource:
Jeff McRitchie is the designer and Director of Marketing for http://www.mybinding.com .He has written over 500 articles on binding machines,binding covers,binders,laminators,binding supplies,laminating supplies,paper handling equipments,index tabs, and shredders.