Unibind XU638 Binding Machine Review

As one of the highest-capacity thermalbinding machines on the market, the Unibind XU638 is a great machinefor use in print shops, binderies, small publishing houses, and largecorporations who regularly bind their own books and reports.Here we will take a close look at the XU638's advantages and disadvantages.

As one of the highest-capacity thermalbinding machines on the market, the Unibind XU638 is a great machinefor use in print shops, binderies, small publishing houses, and largecorporations who regularly bind their own books and reports. Capable ofbinding up to 48 books at a time, the XU638 also works with all of thesupplies that are available from Unibind. Here we will take a closelook at the XU638's advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. The XU638 is an extraordinarily quick and easy to usebinding system. There is no warm-up time, and the entire bindingprocess takes less than one minute.
2. With its six heatingelements, the XU638 is designed for heavy use, and to bind a largenumber of books in a short amount of time. For thinner books (1mm), itis possible to bind up to 48 books simultaneously. Even if you arebinding books that are an inch and a half thick, you can bind six at atime. That, my friends, is some high-capacity binding.
3. TheXU638's heating units work independently of each other, which makes itpossible to load one heating unit while another is in use. Thisincreases productivity greatly, seeing as how this machine works soquickly that it is at times difficult to keep up with.
4. Asstated above, all of Unibind's supplies work with the XU638. This givesusers a huge amount of flexibility in the types of documents they canbind, including Unibind's unique and elegant SteelBook, Steelback,SteelCrystal, SteelMat, and Photobook covers.
5. There is nobetter look than that of a perfect bound book, and that is what theUnibind XU638 offers. Unibind in particular, with its use of steelspines, offers the most durable, rugged and permanent binding systemsavailable anywhere.

Disadvantages:

1. For such a high capacity, professional grade bindingsystem, it is a little bit of a mystery why Unibind didn't include acooling rack with the XU638, especially when you consider that most oftheir smaller machines come with one. You will need to find a place toallow the documents to cool, such as a library book cart, or one ofUnibind's book stands.
2. The XU638 is a bit limited regardingdocument sizes. Unibind's supplies are available in standard eleveninch and eight and a half inch sizes for landscape binding projects.There are a few other sizes available in their Photobook line, but forodd or custom sized projects, the XU638 may not be the best fit. Customsized supplies can be ordered from Unibind but may take months to beproduced since all covers are currently produced in Belgium and shippedto the United States on boats.
3. As with any thermal bindingsystem, the XU638 has trouble with heavily-coated or high-gloss pages.There are some workarounds, the best solution being to place a couplestaples near the edge (and within the spine so as not to be seen), butthis, of course lengthens production time.
4. As far as bookthickness, the XU638 tops out at one and a half inches. If you want tobind thicker books, you will have to look elsewhere.

Recommendation:

As one of the most elegant, fast, and easy-to-use binding systems outthere, the XU638 is a great choice for businesses that do a lot of bookbinding. Higher volume users may want to consider the Unibind ST1025.Lower volume users who don't need to bind a large number of documentsat a time may want to consider the Unibind XU138, XU238 or XU338.

Article Tags: Unibind Xu638, Binding System