What is a Padding Press?

A padding press is a device that creates pads of paper and notepads. Also called a padding machine, it holds stacks of paper in-place while a specialized padding glue, called padding compound, is applied to one edge of the stack. After drying, the stacks are removed and cut down to size.

Padding presses can be found in a variety of shops and businesses, but are most common in print shops and mail stores that offer paper binding and finishing. Pads of paper can be found in every single office, classroom, and even home...which means the customer base for notepads is huge, making padding presses very popular.

Most padding presses are considered "manual" since you will manually depress the stack clamp, apply the glue, and remove the stack from the vice for cutting and finishing. There are, however, perfect binding machines that will also produce padding as a secondary way to bind.

Padding presses can be small tabletop units, or large floor-standing units on wheels. The benefit of a wheeled padding press (or one that sits on a lazy susan) is that you don't have to walk around the machine over and over again while you pad, as you can just rotate the machine.

With a padding press or padding machine, you can make your own notepads with any customized paper you print or buy. You can even use them with carbonless paper and scratch pad sheets. They are incredibly easy to use, and can help you make professional-quality pads of paper in just a few simple steps.

① Jog your pages into a straight stack in your padding press, and lower the clamp to compress the stack and hold it in place.
② Brush on the padding glue of your choice to the binding edge and allow it to dry.
③ Loosen the clamp and use a padding knife to cut the glue into multiple pads of your choice of size. You can use a pad counter and chipboard backings to separate out your pads.

Whether you are a small businesses that wants to make gifts for SWAG bags at your upcoming event, or a family-owned mail depot wanting to expand your binding and finishing capabilities for your customers, or a large print shop that needs to speed up the process of paper padding, we have the padding press for you. We offer only the most popular and high-quality brands including Martin Yale, Lassco Wizer, and Challenge, so you know you are getting the best padding machine available.

About the Author • Mallory Morsa is the product expert and content specialist at Binding101, and has been a valued team member since 2008. She started her career here in customer service, moved onto sales supervisor, product management, and then onto content. She takes a hands-on approach to products, and truly gets to know how every item works before she writes about them, with a goal to give you all of the honest information you need to make a confident buying decision. She has a bachelor's degree with a focus on management and marketing, and has been a writer, photographer, and videographer for many years. In her free time, she loves to read by the pool, volunteer at the local animal shelter in the kitten nursery, and snuggle her three furbabies while she binge watches Netflix.