Hole punch
An office tool for creating holes in paper for binding.
A hole punch is an office tool and item of stationery used to create holes in sheets of paper, often for collecting the sheets in a binder or folder. It can also refer to similar tools for other materials such as leather, cloth, or sheets of plastic or metal. The device is notable for its widespread use in document filing and binding.
Quick Facts
- First multiple-hole punch patent
- Friedrich Soennecken, 14 November 1886
- First single-hole punch record
- 1885, Benjamin Smith
- Refined single-hole punch
- 1893, Charles Brooks
- Us typical hole diameter
- 1/4 to 5/16 in
Facts from the source article.
Mechanism
The essential parts of a hole punch are the handle, the punch head, and the die. The punch head is typically a cylinder with a flat end called the face, while the die is a flat plate with a matching hole. The head moves, and the die is fixed; both are usually made of hard metal with precise tolerances. Paper is inserted between head and die, and moving the handle pushes the head through the sheets, cutting a hole and pushing the cut piece, called a chad, out the bottom. The handle acts as a lever, reducing the force needed; the cylinder travel distance is very short, roughly the thickness of the paper. For low-volume punches, the lever handle need not exceed 8 cm; larger-volume punches have longer lever arms. Multiple-hole punches punch patterns of holes at once, typically with two paper guides: one sets the distance from the paper edge (margin or gutter), and the other aligns holes top to bottom; one or both guides may be adjustable. On such punches, individual punch heads may be adjustable, mounted in independent fittings that slide along a rail and are held by set screws; marks may indicate standard positions, and some positions allow a head to be disengaged. Some designs use hollow punch heads with a sharpened blade edge, allowing chads to be pushed up and out, suitable for thicker paper volumes. For very large amounts of paper, a paper drill may be used instead.
Applications
A single-hole punch makes one hole per activation, usually at an arbitrary position without alignment guides. It is often used to punch admission tickets or other documents to indicate they have been used or processed; a specialized ticket punch may have a longer reach or punch a particular shape. Single-hole punches are used in casinos to punch old playing cards, marking them as used or canceled to reduce cheating. They are widely used in the British Civil Service, where papers are punched with a single hole in the upper left and secured with a treasury tag. Single-hole punches can also be used for binding with a single loose ring, though this is less common than with ring binders, and for making confetti for scrapbooks and crafting. A related tool is the eyelet punch, which also crimps a metal fastening loop around the hole to permanently secure a few sheets. A similar tool called a holing pincer is used in animal husbandry, for example to attach ear tags to livestock. Specialized hand-operated tape punches were used to edit and repair punched paper tapes for teletypes and early computers; torn tapes could be aligned with jigs, spliced with adhesive tape, and holes manually restored. The ASCII DELETE character (code 7F) was defined as all holes punched out, allowing cancellation of an erroneous character. As punched tape technology became obsolescent in the 1980s, manual tape repair tools became rare. Multiple-hole punches place a pattern of holes along one edge of sheets for binding, most commonly with a ring binder, where a book-like cover has retaining rings that can be opened and closed.
History
The hole punch was invented in Germany, where Friedrich Soennecken patented a multiple-hole device called Papierlocher für Sammelmappen on November 14, 1886. A Google Doodle marked the 131st anniversary of this invention on November 14, 2017. The earliest known single-hole puncher, a ticket punch, was described in 1885. Benjamin Smith created a spring-loaded version with a container for the chads, naming it the "conductor's punch." In 1893, Charles Brooks improved the design, and it was still called a ticket punch because it was mainly used to punch train tickets during the rise of rail travel between 1850 and 1900.
Standards
Multiple standards exist for the number and position of holes on multi-punched sheets. Any paper format at least 100 mm high can be filed using this system, and a printed document with a margin of 20–25 mm will accommodate ISO 838 holes. A four-hole extension to ISO 838 is also common, with two holes per the standard plus two additional holes 80 mm to the outside, providing more stability in 4-ring binders while still fitting 2-ring binders; this is sometimes called the 888 system due to the three 8 cm gaps. Konica Minolta specifies that for European 4-hole arrangements, all holes should be 8 mm from the nearest edge, slightly at variance with ISO 838. The United States uses non-ISO paper standards defined in ANSI/ASME Y14.1, but there appears to be no well-established official specification for ANSI paper hole patterns, which are de facto standards by custom. Hole diameter varies between manufacturers, typically 1/4 to 5/16 in, with 5/16 in most common for looser tolerances. Distance to the paper edge also varies, with 1/2 in hole-center-to-edge typical; Konica Minolta specifies 0.5 in for both two- and three-hole variants in North America. For US letter paper (8.5 by 11 in), a three-hole standard is widely used, with centers 4.25 in apart, requiring paper at least 9.5 in high.
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