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Overview:

For companies that don't want to punch and bind their books and documents, Unibind has the solution - the look of a perfect bound book without the need for punching or inserting. All that's required for the Unibind XU138 system is to insert the pages into your spine or cover and place the document onto the machine. The machine does the rest, while you allow the document to cool. There is no more simple binding system available. The Unibind system also offers a huge variety of binding options to users who need to give their reports and documents an innovative, unique look and feel.

Features:

The Unibind XU138 gives users a vast number of binding options, including hard covered presentations, photobooks, reports with clear or frosted front covers and even customized front and back covers. With a maximum capacity of 36mm, you can bind a single document of 36mm, or multiple documents that add up to a total thickness of 36mm, giving you the flexibility of binding multiple small documents or thicker reports, at one time.

The XU138 automatically senses the steel spine in Unibind covers or spines and activates the heater when you place the spine or cover on the machine. After the spine or cover has been placed on the machine, it will then heat the document for the appropriate amount of time. Once the heating occurs the machine will Let you know exactly when your document is finished, so you can move it to the cooling rack. In addition, the Unibind XU138 can be used along with thermal binding covers or glue strips by using a spare Unibind cover to activate the machine.

Limitations:

This versatile binders has many benefits, but also a few notable limitations. For example, The 36mm capacity (approximately 1-1/2") is large enough for most users, but organizations that need to bind a large number of documents may want to choose a binding machine with multiple heating units, allowing them to bind more documents at once. Unfortunately, users who need to bind a single document that is larger than 36mm thick will need to consider a different binding style. The supplies for the UniBind binding system employ an extremely strong steel binding spine, providing excellent quality bind for your documents. However, the fact that the spine is steel means that the documents will not open flat or wrap around, features commonly available with punch and bind binding systems.

Finally, Unibind covers can easily be customized with foil stamping. This finishing technique can be very impressive and quite popular. However, offset printing of hard covers and spine printing are difficult to execute, since the supplies are manufactured in Europe with a 10-12 week lead-time. If lead-times are a problem, you may be better served by another option and not the Unibind XU138.

Construction:

The Unibind XU138 is a combination of plastic and metal construction. However it is very durable and should be adequate for most organizations use. The heating unit for this machine is activated by a magnet that detects the metal in the spine and activates the unit, but can be tricked by using a spare Unibind cover, allowing you to use your Unibind system with thermal binding covers or glue strips. As durable as the Unibind XU138 machine may be, it also comes with a 1 year warranty, though it generally has very few problems. However, if ever the heating unit does have a problem, it will need to be repaired by Unibind, which could be quite inconvenient to accomplish.

Recommendation:

This machine is perfectly adequate for most users and is a great choice for high end presentations and proposals, making it popular for real estate agents, appraisers and printers. For high volume users, however, a multi heater unit might be a better choice. Do keep in mind, however, that a multi heater unit does not offer any additional functionality, it only offers more capacity. But if capacity is what you are looking for, you may want to go with a multi-heater unit. All-in-all, the Unibind XU138 is highly-recommended for binding documents, reports, presentations, proposals, photo books, yearbooks and more.