A paper punch suitable for Deskfax size Filofax organisers

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in DeskFax organisers, whilst they are no longer in production, their size is quite preferable for some people, slightly bigger than A5, but not as huge as an A4 when fully open.

There are plenty of examples popping up on Ebay that people have successfully bid for and Karine set up a Facebook group to bring interested parties together.

Inserts are still available from Filofax although a little limited in range. Philofaxy inserts work if you scale them down to 84% of the original.

Deskfax uses B5 size paper (176 x 250mm) which is quite hard to come by, but a lot of people have been buying Letter size or A4 size paper in 500 sheet packs and getting it cut to size by Staples or Office Depot or similar outlets.

That left just one thing from the jigsaw puzzle to solve.... a paper punch that can punch Deskfax paper. It is possible to do using existing punches such as the KW Trio and I created a video to show how to set it up to do Deskfax in a double punching arrangement.

However, a trawl of the Internet produced a Multi Punch sold through Filofax Germany that will punch Deskfax as well as other Filofax sizes, but it wasn't cheap. So we continued our search...

We then came across an adjustable punch sold with 6 punch dies and initially set up for Filofax A5, but it was capable of all sizes up to A4, this looked promising. An enquiry with the company selling the punch revealed they also sell spare punch dies in packets of 2. So I ordered a punch and two packs of punch dies. This would give me 10 in all, so a spare one. It arrived whilst I was in UK so I've not had a chance to set it up until now.

Now as I have numerous other punches for A4, A5, Personal etc size Filofax organisers I intended to set this one up and dedicate it to Deskfax size, I suspect other Deskfax owners would do the same. Once set up you would have a reliable means of punches new pages without a lot of setting up each time.

Fitting the additional punch dies is a little bit fiddly, but not too difficult to do with a small pair of needle nose pliers.

So let us look at the punch in detail and I will explain what you get etc.

So this is the box, nothing outstanding here really, it does include some information about setting it up for A5 naturally. There is a sheet of instructions as well.

This is the punch itself and the eagle eyed amongst you will spot that I've set it up for 9 holes already!

Turn it around and you will see the nine punches.

The punches are spaced 19 <-> 19 <-> 50 <-> 19 <-> 19 <-> 50 <-> 19 <-> 19mm for Deskfax.

To set the spacing correctly I installed the central punch first and then measured the spacing accurately by lining the edge of adjacent punches to same edge with a ruler. I then checked the setting my inserting a sheet of pre-punched Deskfax paper into the punch and look through the punched holes to check the alignment.

Remove the plastic paper chad catcher and this reveals the bottom of the punch.

Now there is a small modification required, so zooming in on the middle three punches. The centre one has its own hole in the base for the chads to escape through. But if you look at the left hand one you will notice that the exit hole is slightly obscured. This is how the punch came from the suppliers.

This picture does also show the right hand one in the group not obscured, after removing the punch block I filed out the slot with a round metal file to allow for clearance for the paper chads to exit the base of the punch block unheeded, it took me a few minutes to do this but it is worthwhile doing in the long term. I will do the left hand one now I've photographed the 'as supplied' and 'as modified' pictures, but I wanted you to see how it arrives.

These are the removable punch dies, the knurled and slotted screw on the right in the picture below holds it at the right point on the punch. As you can see the punch has capacity for about 5 sheets of paper, depending on the thickness of paper of course.

With 9 punch dies to press down on you really need to eat your Weetabix in the morning if you are going to use this set up, but I guess it would be the same for any 9 hole punch. I've found that it is best to use the punch on a good solid surface. The punch remains where you place it and you can use one hand to steady the paper and the other to press the lever down.

Overall I'm pleased we have found an economical and reasonably available solution for Deskfax users.

The links below will take you to the punch and the additional punch dies which come in packs of 2 so you will need to order two packs.