Mail-in rebinding

Your book, spiral bound. Opened flat.

Mail us the paperback you already own — the cookbook, the shop manual, the sheet music. We cut off the glued spine and fit a plastic spiral coil. It lies flat on its own, and stays that way.

Price my bookSee how it works

4–6 days in the shop · Tracked both ways · Fixed price before you ship

Arrives Spine trimmed Punched Coil turned in
  • We photograph your book on the bench before a blade touches it.
  • Tracked both ways. You get the number the day it leaves us.
  • If we can’t bind it, it goes back to you untouched and free.

What we take

What we spiral bind — and what we can’t

Paperbacks, manuals, brochures — anything with a glued spine and a soft cover. Single copies are the normal job here. What we cannot take is hardcovers and anything genuinely old, and that is worth knowing before you go to the post office.

  • Cookbooks Softcover — the most common job by far
  • Shop & service manuals Open on the bench, greasy hands
  • Sheet music & songbooks Stays put on the stand
  • Workbooks & study guides Write in them without a fight
  • Field & lab guides One hand free
  • Brochures & patterns Flat next to the work

And what we can’t take

  • Hardcovers. A case-bound book needs its boards cut off and the block re-trimmed before a coil can go near it. That is a different job, and not one we do.
  • Old or fragile books. Paper past a certain age tears at the punch instead of cutting, and there is no undoing that. If it is an heirloom, you want a conservation bindery, not us.
  • Blocks thicker than 1⅞”. That is the largest coil we stock, less the clearance it needs to turn.
  • Inner margins under ½”. The punch would eat your text. We stop and call you before we cut.

How it works

Four steps, and you only do one of them.

  1. 01 Price it

    Measure the spine with any ruler. The price is on screen before you commit to anything.

  2. 02 Ship it

    We email a prepaid label. Wrap the book, stick it on, hand it over. That is your whole job.

  3. 03 We rebind it

    Photograph, trim the glued spine, punch at 4:1 pitch, turn the plastic spiral through, crimp both ends. Your own cover goes back on.

  4. 04 Back to you

    Boxed flat and tracked. Four to six working days in the shop, plus post each way.

Pricing

Spiral binding prices. One measurement is the whole quote.

Print shops ask for page counts because they are making the book. Yours already exists — put a ruler against the spine and you have told us everything we need.

0.10" 1⅞" is the thickest coil we stock
How many books

Single copies are the normal job here — no minimum, no surcharge.

Finishing
Coil it takes —

Prices shown are placeholders while the real figures are set.

Questions

The ones people actually ask.

Nearly always some version of “are you going to ruin my book?” It is a fair question.

Do you take hardcovers?
No — softcover only. We spiral bind paperbacks, brochures and manuals. A hardcover is built the other way round: the pages are sewn or glued into a case, and getting a coil in means cutting the boards off and re-trimming the whole block. It is a different trade from ours, and we would rather say so than do it badly.
What if the book is old?
Then it is probably not for us either. Paper gets brittle with age and tears at the punch rather than cutting cleanly, and that is not something anyone can put right afterwards. Send a photo if you are unsure and we will tell you honestly — and if it is a genuine heirloom, what you actually want is a conservation bindery.
Will I get my original cover back?
Yes. The cover is punched with the text block and goes back on, front and back. If it is soft or already tired, we can laminate it first so the coil does not chew the holes.
How much of the book is cut away?
About 3 mm — just the glued strip at the spine. The punch then takes a row of holes 7 mm in from that new edge. If your inner margin is tighter than half an inch we stop and call you rather than cutting into the text.

From the journal

All articles

Not sure it is a candidate? Ask us first.

Send a photo of the book and the spine. We will tell you straight whether spiral is right for it — including when it is not.

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