All About Plastic Coil Spiral Binding

Plastic coil binding, also called Spiral Binding, is an incredibly durable and flexible way to bind books, making it one of the most popular document binding solutions on the market today. A coil looks like an old phone cord, with a continuous plastic spine that spins around into many loops. The coils are spun into several closely spaced holes that are either round or oval shaped. The coils are made of a very flexible plastic material that can bend in all directions, and still retain its original shape. This makes it very durable, and able to withstand heavy handling; in fact, the pages of your document will wear out before the binding spine does.

There are many benefits to choosing spiral binding coils for your books, as well as some limitations to keep in mind before you buy.

Plastic Coil Finishing Advantages

    • Modern Look - The continuous spiral look is clean, while the plastic adds a modern touch
    • Durable - The flexible plastic bounces back from heavy use
    • Wide variety of color options - A huge stock of various colors mean you can more easily match your brand to your binding. Special-order colors and even custom colors are also available for high quantities.
    • Large selection of sizes - Plastic coils come in many sizes from 6mm up to 50mm, which means you can bind books as thin as just a few pages, or as thick as about 440 sheets.
    • 360° Page turning - You can flip your pages all the way around on themselves
    • Affordable - Coils are made of a very economical plastic, priced at just about $5.50 for a box of 100 coils. This works out to just about $0.05 per book for letter size documents.

Plastic Coil Finishing Limitations:

    • Subject to extreme temperatures - This is not a common problem, but something we do need to mention. It is made of plastic, which can melt st extreme temperatures. Extreme cold can also make the plastic more fragile.
    • Pages do not open perfectly side-to-side - Because of their spiraled design (and the angled rotation), coils are not optimal for projects requiring tight registration across spreads, as the pages do not align perfectly from side to side.

Plastic Coil Popular Applications:

    • Brochures
    • Reports
    • Manuals
    • Calendars
    • Cookbooks
    • Children's books
    • Marketing material
    • and more...

What You Need to Bind with Plastic Coil:

How to Bind with Plastic Coil:

    • Position the paper guide on your binding machine based on your desired paper size. Gather your printed sheets and insert the allotted amount of paper into the opening. When the paper is fully inserted, slide the stack to the left until it makes contact with the paper guide. To make sure all of the edges of the sheets are flush, tap the sides of the stack. Press the foot pedal, button, or pull the handle to punch the sheets. Repeat this step until all of the pages you want in your book are punched.

    • Manually insert and spin the plastic coil into the first 3 or 4 holes of your stack. If you are using the optional electric coil inserter, hold the binding edge of the book with the coil against the activated spinning rollers. If you are not using the electric coil inserter, continue to spin the coil manually all the way through the binding edge.

    • Place your book flat on the table. Using your right hand, make sure that the red-dot on the cutter & crimper pliers is facing up. Place the cutting head to the center of the coil & squeeze the handles. It is important to center that cutting head, otherwise the coil will not crimp. Flip the book over and repeat the steps to cut & crimp the other side.


Mallory Morsa, Binding101 Product ExpertAbout the Author • Hi! My name is Mallory Morsa, and I have been the product expert and content specialist at Binding101 since 2008 (I have practically grown up here!). Every day I push myself to learn new information, incorporating real-life experiences from myself and the entire team to create solutions to the most common problems in the industry, and then present those solutions in a way that is easy to understand for everyone, from novices to experts. I dive deep into products to figure out how they work from the core, and am always honest with my results, so that you know exactly what you will get, before you buy. Outside of work, I can be found snuggling my 3 furbabies, reading by the pool, or at my local animal shelter bottle feeding and volunteering for the kitten nursery.