Fellowes 5006801-99 Binding Machine Pulsar+ Comb Binding (5006801)

I’ve had this binding machine for about two years, and I’ve used it for at least 100 different books on family history and genealogy topics, ranging in size from 20-500 pages. It’s sturdy and works flawlessly. And, it’s saved me a LOT of money and time over going to an office supply store to have them do what I can now do myself. I’ve only had two problems: (1) not fully learning how to use it in the beginning - I am NOT crafty in any stretch of the imagination, so I needed to read the instructions and play with it at the beginning before I figured out how to use it. Once you figure it out once, though, it’s quite easy every time, even if it’s been awhile between uses. (2) very occasionally the pages / covers don’t get punched properly, but every single time it’s been because I’ve been in a rush; it’s never been the machine’s fault. Just make sure you keep paying attention to each step as you make each book, have a few size combs as options, and, have back and front covers if you need an extra level of niceness, and you’re good. After trying lots of different methods for books, these are my recommendations for great covers and paper, all of which work great with this binding machine. Genealogy and family history books are great, but when they're printed on garbage and put together like garbage, it takes away from the information I've put together. It's awesome when you put together something for someone and they're blown away the second they see the book, before they've even opened it. --------------------- COVERS Note: the covers suggested here are thicker than the flimsy samples that come with the machine General cover suggestions: - get thicker covers (8 mil) these bend but are not at all flimsy, and they work great with this machine - get oversized (8.75" x 11.25" vs 8.5" x 11") it just looks tidier, and covers your books better - get them in bulk: the price drops significantly when you get larger quantities in a package, so go with the 100 sized packages if possible - only put one cover in your binder at a time - you'll have less mistakes that way. Binding Front Cover recommendations: (1) Fellowes 52311 Crystal Clear Presentation Covers with Round Corners, 8mil Oversize Letter, Clear (Pack of 100) https://www.amazon.com/Fellowes-Binding-Presentation-Covers-52089/dp/B0015ZXIL2 I'm not crazy about how the Crystal Clear covers feel. They feel like they'll scratch up like crazy, but then they really don't. You can't beat them price-wise. Right now 100 packs are about $18, which comes to .18 a cover. (2) Fellowes Futura Premium Heavyweight Presentation Covers, Oversize Letter, Frosted, 25 Pack (5224201) https://www.amazon.com/Fellowes-Binding-Presentation-Covers-52089/dp/B0196JUY7Y The Frosted ones are amazing. They're see-through yet frosted just enough to give them a much more professional look and feel than the crystal clear ones, in my opinion. Unfortunately I've only been able to find them in 25 packs, where they cost about .90 cents to $1 each. If you hunt around a little you can find a bit better of a deal, but no where near as low as the clear ones. If the costs were closer between the two types, I'd only use frosted. Binding Back Cover recommendation: Fellowes Binding Presentation Covers, Oversize Letter, 200 Pack, Black (52138) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000Y9FB0G At about $22.50 for 200, these are a fantastic deal at less than .12 each. --------------------- PAPER If you want great paper, this is the stuff to get: Hammermill Paper, Premium Color Copy 8.5 x 11 Acid Free, 28lb, 100 Bright, 5 Reams / 2,500 Sheets (102450C) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005EO3QHG/ If you get it on the Subscribe and Save deal, it's currently about $40.50 a box, which comes to about .0162 cents per page. SO worth it. It feels fantastic, is wholly opaque, prints great in an ink jet. Absolutely hands down the best paper I've ever used. People WILL comment on it, and will think you spent a crazy amount of money on it. Note!! Because the paper is a lot heavier than most kinds people use, you have to account for that when choosing a comb / spine size. I made a little chart that I taped onto the binder itself to remind me what size comb to use with the 28 lb paper. If you have less comb sizes, use the next size up. The chart is attached as an image to this review.

With Staples charging us around $38 PER REPORT I just figured I'd have to start doing it myself. I love this little machine. I had no issues with doing around 20 sheets and didn't really count as I did them. I did less sheets at a time with the clear covers, a but more with my heavy card stock backers, but all n all you'll get used to how many to punch at a time and it goes quickly regardless. As for the comb part , that's a little tricky. You can drop in the comb but it seems you almost have to use something to poke them more forward to ensure all the loops in the comb get caught and pulled out. I use a letter opener to do that. It's really NO BIG DEAL to do that and no way an issue with the machine. I just found it easier and faster to just push the comb a little forward so it could be grabbed better. Sliding the punched pages with clear front and backers takes a little practice of opening the comb a lot, then close a little, then a little more as you slide all the pages at once on the comb spikes... but again, it's fast, it's easy and you'll get the hang of it. Oh another note, I thought a full arm pull on the machine would be better than just a single pull arm on the right side like this machine and I'm wrong. It truly doesn't matter at all. Great machine and I highly recommend it!

This machine is so easy to set up and use. I quickly binded 12 books the first use. If you are using a sheet laminator first, you do need to trim the top and bottom for the pages to fit.

I worked in an office with an ancient comb binder that was super heavy but worked great. I purchased this for home and self publishing. It's very lightweight and does an excellent job. I love how you can punch holes and keep the binding on to fill a little at a time. Great product!

I purchased for home use. My family made gluten-free cookbooks for our extended family last Christmas! It worked out great! Well made!

I wanted to use this product for a while for my review to be more accurate. I have been using it for about three months now, and I love this product. I meets every need for my booklet assembly. I think the best feature is the gravity feed. It ensures page alignment without any hassle. It is so easy to use that I was a pro before I finished my first booklet assembly. And, it is so refreshing to have equipment that is not electronic that needs plugging in, charging, or having to update or worry about settings, blah, blah, blah, hehe. I will say, it needed a workspace of its own, because it took up too much desk space (it is about the same size as my home printer). Also, it is a bit heavy to be portable for me, but, to be clear, I am not a big/strong build personJ Overall, I could not be more satisfied with my purchase.

I take a ton of photo; so I wanted a comb binding system for creating albums of my printed pictures. Initially, I bought an entry level GBC BindMate machine. It cost me around $79 and was a total P.O.S. from the very first day. The punch on it was so unreliable that I ended up pre-punching my photo paper, before printing on it. At least that way, I wouldn't waste my ink too. After about 8 months, I threw away my old GBC machine; but if I added up the cost of all the mispunched sheets of photo paper, it would more than cover the cost I just pay for my new Fellows Pulsar+ machine. In another review, a user complained about mis-punched pages on the Fellows Pulsar+. His complaint was due to the paper had a sight curl in it from having been printed on. In that case, I would recommend pre-punching your paper first. Or, you can even buy pre-punched paper; but the cost is 2-3 times higher than punching it yourself. I've only had my Pulsar+ for 1 day; but I already love it. When it arrived, and I lifted the box, I knew it wasn't another cheap piece of plastic junk. At about 15 pounds, it actually weighs more than my inkjet printer; but a solid build is a good thing. When I punched my first sheet of paper, I thought something was wrong. There was absolutely no resistance; so I didn't think the paper had actually punched. It was literally like a hot knife cutting through a stick of butter. And even better, the punched holes were clean and crisp, with no hanging chad whatsoever. The Pulsar+ is rated for punching up to a maximum of 18-20 sheets of 20 pound paper at a time; so I decided to put it to a test. (Amazon's item description says 18 pages; but the actually machine says 20 sheets.) I was able to punch 20 sheets; and they all came out cleanly punched too. Admittedly, I had to apply a bit more force than I liked. After experimenting a bit with the number of pages, I can punch about 5-8 sheets with almost no resistance. Beyond that, the amount up resistance goes up as the number of sheets increased. Another thing I really like about the Pulsar+ is its ability to punch and bind at the same time. On my old GDC machine, the punch was on the bottom and the binding area was on the top. Consequently, if I was binding a document, I couldn't punch additional pages at the same time. Fellows got it right and put the binding area on the bottom and the punch area on top. Consequently, having a partially bound document does not obscure the punching area. Another nice feature is that the paper support on the Pulsar+ serves as a lid when the machine isn't in use. This helps protect the internal parts from dust and/or damage. Plus, it just looks a lot neater. The lid is black on the inside and white on the outside. When the lid is opened, there's a small strip of white (about 1/8") that shows at the very top. The contrasting colors help you know that your paper is correctly inserted into the punching slot. The built-in storage tray is yet another nice feature of the Pulsar+. It's not real big; but it will hold a few plastic binding combs. It also has a size gauge that shows what diameter of comb to use for various document thicknesses. Last, but not least, my Pulsar+ came with a free 10 document starter kit. On my previous comb bound document, I've used standard card stock for my covers; but I had wonder if the actual comb bind cover were worth the cost. The covers are only about twice as thick as the 110 pound card stock I've been using; so in my opinion, they're not worth the cost. Each cover sheet costs about 50₵ (i.e. $1 for one document, with a front and back cover). Even so, it was nice that fellows let me try out their covers at no additional cost. If my opinion changes, I'll update this review to include my new observations. ***** UPDATE after one month of use: In my initial review, I gave this machine a 5-star rating; but I have decided to drop that down to 4-stars. To date, I have punched and comb-bound most my photos; which I previously had in document protectors, stored in 3-ring binders. The comb-bound photo albums take up about half the space the 3-ring binders took; so that's great. I don't have an exact count of how many pages I've punched; but my best estimate is somewhere around 6,500 pages. About half of those pages were thicker inkjet photo paper; and the other half were 20# bond paper. In addition, I've punched (one at a time) a pack of 25 poly document covers. When I punched the first poly document cover, two of the holes had hanging chad. I punched a few more covers; and they also had the problem hanging chad. After a bit of experimentation, I was finally able to get the covers cleanly punched. How I accomplished this was by placing a piece of card stock in the punch, in front of the poly covers. This allowed the punch dies to go through the poly cover cleanly. The other reason I have downgraded my rating is because the dies are no longer punching as cleanly as when it was brand new. In my opinion, the dies have become dull a bit too quickly. The machine is still usable; but the holes it punches just are a bit ragged around the edges. A kitchen knife will dull after being used for awhile; and apparently the punching dies in this machine do likewise. The difference is that I can resharpen a kitchen knife. That isn't an option with this machine.

I chose this binding machine because I need to be able to bind 350 page books and files and the price was great. I was a bit leery as many of the reviews mentioned difficulty binding so many pages. Having used an office binding machine before and learning a few tricks for binding large numbers of pages, I decided to go ahead and order it. I am very happy that I did. The machine functions perfectly if you know how to use it properly. For those people attempting to bind 300 pages there are a few tricks to know: Once you have your binder comb loaded on the machine and the stretcher arm has the comb opened... load 20 pages at a time onto the comb ends. Punching all of the pages and trying to load them all at once won't work. As the comb ends fill up... slowly release the stretcher arm a little bit at a time to expose more of the comb ends (pull the comb through the pages a bit to expose more as you allow the comb stretcher to retract. Then load more pages... continue doing this as you go and it's easy. All in all this is a great machine. The price is amazingly low, and the workmanship is solid.