This nifty gadget automatically sews together up to five sheets of paper using only the paper itself. It’s billed as the “environmentally friendly” alternative to the traditional stapler, and only costs about $7. I’m still skeptical if it works though … has anyone tried it? Link
dithie
works most of the time, but the angle at which you remove the sheets after makes a difference.
Keetch
Believe it or not, this type of fastener was around when I was a kid 57 years ago. My sister and I had one. It was clunky and black and looked more like a regular stapler than the one in this picture. I can’t remember how many sheets it handled at a time, but we thought it was a pretty cool tool.
Jeff
I bought one of these about 10 years ago in Sante Fe, New Mexico at an enviro friendly store on the square. It works fairly decent on a few sheets of paper and holds pretty good. I’ve hoped over the years that someone would come out with one that stapled more sheets!
Thanks for the great site, Jeff
david
Check it out: http://www.grand-illusions.com/toycollection/lihit_no_5/
There’s a video of it in action too.
Stockholm
I have one – like others have said it works for 2-4 sheets, but beyond that it is a problem. They stay together about as well as papers do if they are paper cliped together. Great if you are going to shred later – no worries about staples.
Stefanie
It’s pretty easy to do this by hand, actually. We did it all the time when we were kids and we’d forgotten to staple the pages of our reports together.
Grab a couple of pieces of paper at the corner and fold the pages down together, dog-ear style. Then make two small parallel tears on the fold (perpendicular to the folded edge), creating a tab. Fold the tab down and you’re all set.
It actually holds pretty decently, too.
Matt
Another Neatorama staff member gets a bonus for making an advertisement into an article…
Miss Cellania
I recall doing this many times when I had no stapler, just as Stefanie described.
Jacki
Haha. In TOK, my teacher dictates everything we do. Font, size, margin, words, what words we cannot say (like “however” and “for example”). And of course the “staple @ a 45 degree angle top left” or we fail IB (y) Mwahaha.
hana
i hear you Jacki. i had a teacher who spent two minutes of our first day explaining why she did not want us to tear and fold the paper as Stefanie described. honestly given the amount of paper used in that class, it was a good idea, it just seemed incredibly nit-picky at the time.
Andrew
Be careful stapling too many sheets with these – it can screw up the mechanism inside. I once had to take mine apart to re-assemble the delicate interior bits after I tried to make it bite off more than it could chew.
Mark
I had a similar device 50 years ago, though it was made of metal and not plastic. It worked very well.
Joy
I’ve used these in my classroom, and I don’t care for them. Papers become separated much more often than with traditional staplers. The kids liked the novelty factor, though.
Sid
About the only good feature is that it lets the papers be shredded later — Thanks Stockholm.
The rest of it is pure gimmick. Staples are wicked cheap. A box will last most of us decades. The “evironmental factor” is pretty bogus, although it makes for a good way to shill the product to less-bright greenies. Take an ordinary staple and leave it outside. Within a couple weeks it will be rusted away to nothing. The iron oxide dust it turned to is completely benign and found in huge quanities in nature anyhow. There is no environmental issue with conventional staples.
Anita
Sid – From an environmental standpoint, we’d all be much better if we just let most of our trash lay outside and biodegrade.
nerfherder
Sid, you’re completely right. In fact, I just found a tip somewhere that said if your hydrangeas are washed-out pink, your soil is ‘weak’ and you should bury nails under the bushes so the iron oxide will turn the flowers a preferred bright blue instead. I have another problem with these things though: I can’t remove and restaple multiple times without turning my paperwork into a chewed up mess. This comes up more than you’d think. Paperclips are way too thick to file hundreds of them, and they don’t hold.
Randy Quaid
I’m sure someone has pointed this out already, but this thing is just a cheap copy of the metal tools people used to use to “staple” without staples. This thing looks a prime item for the dollar store (as in, not worth $7!)
Leslie
I’ve had one for years that makes two small parallel punches, the only problem is if you have lots of sheets. I really liked it, although taking the paper apart again was a little more destructive than a staple remover.
Clutch
Looks like it’d make a mess of the paper.
Clutch
~tshirtwebsites.com
yamis
Thanks David for the http://www.grand-illusions.com link. THIS is neat! I love the constrast between the British 60something soft spoken guy and the weird toys he’s using.
A must see!
ashan
sid: Biodegradability isn’t the only environmental consideration. The metal staples used are a demand on natural resources, and if they can be avoided, why not?
marcintosh
I use an antique version of this. It looks like a paper punch, but does what this product does. It dates to the early 40′s. You know what they say, everything old is new again.
Wenditha
Oh my….I work at a library and was given this as a ‘favor’ of sorts at a conference. I truly had no idea what it did, but I brought it home and let it sit around and collect dust for the past few months. Thanks to Neatorama, I am now stapling all manner of paper, and will bring it into the library to dazzle my friends (we’re easily thrilled). A million thanks to you and yours!
esteefyou
Yeesss, someone else who has suffered through the IB’s TOK course. We had those stapling requirements for IB physics also.
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Elizabeth
