Akiles AlphaBind-CM Manual Comb Punch & Binding Machine

Expert Reviews

AlphaBind-CM Expert Review  by Mallory Morsa
About Our Expert • Mallory Morsa has worked in several different departments in her 10+ years at Binding101. Beginning in customer service and sales, she honed in her skills to provide the customer with professional, fast, and accurate information. Shortly after, she was promoted to sales supervisor and product expert, gaining hands-on and in-depth product research as well as training the team on new products. She now holds the position of content specialist, taking her extensive knowledge of our products and putting it on the web for you to access at any time. In her expert reviews, she outlines the good and the bad of products that she has handled herself, and uses her experience to identify the ideal users. If you have any questions or need more information about this product, please call our trained customer care team at (866)537-2244. Thank you for stopping by!
           

I RECOMMEND THIS FOR:
The AlphaBind-CM is a great machine for low and mid-duty gbc comb binding requirements that may be found in smaller private schools, businesses, and churches. It looks sleek, and offers top-quality manufacturing for manual comb punch and bind, without an exorbitant price tag to go along with it.
 

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT IT:
The AlphaBind-CM is a manual version of the 4.25 star rated AlphaBind-CE, so it has all of the same great manufacturing quality, with the electronic features eliminated. This makes is incredibly easy to use, while still offering surprisingly strong capabilities. It offers fast and powerful punching using the handle, and simple comb opening and closing with the smaller handle/switch.

Because this comb binder has punch pins that can be pulled out and rendered incapable of punching, you have more versatility with your sheet sizes. And although it has a smaller punching width for letter size and A4 pages, it is open-ended, which means that if you punch once, then flip your pages and punch again, you can essentially bind a page as long as double that.

The chip tray is also extra large, holding many more punched chads than other machines; it is actually a full tray that is emptied from the front, so you can do it less often. I also like that the comb opener handle is small and compressed close to the machine; there is no need for those handles to be so large and obtrusive, so this smaller one is great.
 

THINGS TO CONSIDER:
The most important consideration here is your volume; make sure you are only binding from time to time before you choose a manual machine, and make sure you only need to make comb bound books. Other than that, I wish there was a way to make the punch handle smaller while still allowing for proper leverage to punch; something closer to the size of the comb opener. But that may not be something against this machine, but more of a general wish for binding machines.
 

THE BOTTOM LINE:
With all of this information in mind, I am overall very happy with the AlphaBind-CM machine. It works well for all plastic gbc style comb sizes, and combines strength with ease-of-use. This unit is a good choice for small businesses, schools, and churches who may bind a couple of times a week in smaller quantities. It has the same high-quality manufacturing that we’ve come to expect from Akiles machinery, and has all of the essential features to help ensure you always achieve a professional bind.