You've decided to take the plunge and buyyour first plastic comb binding machine. Good for you! As you mayalready know, plastic comb binding is an easy and relativelyinexpensive way to bind your organization's important documents andbooklets. But before buying a machine, there are a few things you needto know about plastic comb binding. Binding combs come in two different shapes and which shape you usedepends on the size of the document. Smaller combs (up to 1 1/8" wide)are round and, of course, are used for smaller documents. However, forthicker documents, the combs used are oval-shaped and have two or threelocks to prevent pages from falling out if the booklet is picked up byits spine. Keep in mind that some of the smaller (and, honestly,cheaper) plastic comb binding machines aren't designed to handle theoval-shaped combs, so if you'll be binding thicker documents, you'llwant to be sure your machine can handle them.Plastic medical mould Also, the majority ofplastic combs available have 19 rings on them for binding a standard8.5 x 11" document. Smaller combs are available, but if you're going tobe binding a document that's longer than 11 inches, you'll need acustom-length comb. If you need to bind larger documents in a hurry,you might want to look at other binding options, such as coil or wirebinding. You'll need a machine that has disengageable dies If you're likely tobe binding documents that are smaller or larger than 8.5 x 11".Disengageable dies allow you to control how many holes you punch inyour document. If you punch a non-standard size document in a machinewithout these dies, you won't be happy with the results. To avoid thisscenario, so be sure to look for a machine that has this feature if youneed to bind booklets of different sizes. Look for a machine with an adjustable depth of punch margin control.What's that? Well, simply put, it's a feature that enables you tocontrol how far the holes will be from the edge of the paper. This is avital feature to have when binding both very small and very largedocuments. For small documents, the holes need to be close to the edgeof the paper so that the pages can be freely turned. For largerdocuments, the holes need to be further in so that the pages can't beeasily torn out. (Unless, of course, you want the pages to come outeasily.) Now that you know what to consider when buying a plastic comb bindingmachine, you're better informed than you were before and can nowconfidently purchase the right machine. Good luck and have fun binding!