Topic: binding printed manuals

[76 cb550]

I printed around 250 pages of manuals for my cb550 and I was trying to figure out how to bind them together.  I hate three ring binders I always seem to break the rings and hole punching 4 pages at a time so they'll all line up with the rings is a PITA.  A folder doesn't work...the pages just end up a mess and flipping back and forth is hard.  Stapling is simply out of the question, and I can't do the fancy fall apart glue job that most store bought manuals get, SO I thought about it a bit and came up with this.

A BIT DANGEROUS> take the extra length of 2X12 you have left over from making your truck ramp and lay it on the ground.  Set the entire stack of paper on the board and line up all the edges.  Now drive nails in around the pages (not through) to hold them in place.  Next pull out a nice big drill bit along with your favorite drill.  Take a straight edge and draw a line around 1/4-1/2" from the edge of the paper.  Now drill 5 holes down that line.  Spacing doesn't have to be precise your gonna get oil all over this thing not to mention blood, sweat, and a few tears, so it doesn't need to look great.  Now pull out your trusty zip ties (police riot cuffs kinda things)  and run one through each hole.  (you may want to divide your book into 50 page sections, that's what I did...I haven't tested anything more than that)  You now have a usefull manual.

I haven't tried any of these things but a few ideas I've thought of that might make it work better are:
1 clear packaging tape on the first and last page to add durability (atleast put it along the edge your drilling) 
2 A clear plastic folder same reason(just drill right through it and proceed as normal) 
3 A 6th hole in a corner...this is incase you take my advice on the 50 page maximum.  Use a clip of some sort to attach the manual together to prevent part of it being lost.
4 When drilling the holes I advise you NOT to hold the paper down with your hand...this is the easiest way to do it but I've seen a drill bit break and a broken bit go through a finger like it was nothing...I DID use my fingers but I do NOT recommend it.  You have to hold it down with something though...probably a (can't think of the word so here's a description) piece of wood with holes predrilled at the correct locations and distance from the edge of the paper.  Set that on the paper and line it up along the edge of the paper.  Put some weight on the board and go at it.


TIPS
1 use both sides of the page.  Most printer software has a "reverse each page" as well as a "print only even and only odd pages" setting.  USE THESE TO YOUR ADVANTAGE.  They reduce the size of the manual by half greatly increasing it's usability. 


Anyone else have any neat binding methods.

[754]

Take it to a newspaper or binding place, they can probably drill all the holes at once with a paper drill.. does a real nice job..

 gotta ask though, why not just buy a manual ??

[76 cb550]

I bought the haynes manual.  It's allright but I needed a second source.  So I printed what seems to me to be a more technical manual.  I've read several places that the manuals can and are occasionally wrong and it's a good idea to cross-reference two or more manuals.  I've been reading the haynes manual a few times and said to myself "what?" looked in the service manual and said "oh"

[inline4]

Hey 76 cb550
 At most any office supply retailer you can buy 3-hole punched copy/printing paper.
I have an un-opened package in front of me right now.
Add a binder and you will have it made.

[mark]

Here's what I've done with downloaded and printed out manuals.....

Print pages on one side.

Insert two pages back-to-back in cheapo plastic page protectors.

Insert plastic pages in 3-ring binder.

Pages lay flat, don't tear out or get smudged.

[Bodi]

Any copy shop should be able to do "cirlock" binding, this has the row of many rectangular holes down the paper edge and the plastic spine fingery thing that holds it all together, I have used this system a lot and it's much better than 3-ring. You can get sheet plastic covers and protect the first and last pages nicely.

[medic09]

Interesting to see this.  When I was a student in Israel in the 70s and 80s, I would have to 'rebind' old texts I was using.  The only difference was I didn't have zip-ties, so I used medium weight coarse twine.  I still have a few volumes bound that way.  Crude, but it worked! 

[76 cb550]

I was actually looking for some twine when I stumbled upon the zip ties and a light went off in my head.  I've used these a lot now and I must say I am very pleased with the results.

[Raul CB750K1]

Unless you use your company printer as "salary in goods" -or whatever the english term is, you know what I mean-, if you have an ink printer it is generally cheaper to buy the book than to print it. You can get the shop manual in eBay for 20 or 30 bucks, if not the first time, at least the second or third time. That's roughly the cost of an ink cartridge.

For shop manuals I swear for the plastic protectors. Nevertheless, I had the original manual so I copied -you guessed it, in the company copier- two-pages-per page, so I reduced the amount of pages by half, and in one binder I have the shop and parts manual. Those copies are in plastic protectors, and the binder is always in the shop. If I need to check something at home I check the original manual. And I also have them scanned, so sometimes -as when I replaced the swingarm bushings and the like- simply print out that page alone, take it with me to the shop to check for part's installation, and when the job was done, discard that single sheet of paper that I had remorselessly stained with my greasy fingerprints.

[76 cb550]

I'm not sure why but I assume that since I have a laser printer everyone else should too.  Your right printing a manual on ink jet would be prohibitively expensive.