Printer For Scott National Blank Pages

Looking for a commercial printer machine that will print Scott 11.5x10 blank album pages. Thanks. Rick T.

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

Maybe I misunderstand, but if you want a "commercial printer machine," shouldn't you just go to a commercial printer somewhere in your home town? Most of the recommendations you'll get here would be for normal printers (Canon, Epson, H-P, etc) that you'd buy retail and use at home.

He is looking for a large (wide) format printer.
https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-bes...mat-printers
Don

A "wide-bed" printer can do that at home, if that's what you want. You'll print your own page layouts, obviously.

And you'll need paper of some kind, either all-blank (no borders) if your page layouts have borders or bordered if they do not have borders.

And one more thing, you'll need a way to punch holes in the pages you create. Three holes will be easy since three-hole punches abound, but two holes will take some readjusting of your hole punch. As for punching your pages for the two rectangular holes used on Scott Specialty/National pages, I have no idea how to do that. I have done individual pages at times with a hand-held "rectangular hole" punch that "sort of" produces these holes (if you don't look too closely).

Wide-bed printers are available used (on eBay) or new for more than normal printers, but they're not too expensive, I suppose.

Rick, I've been printing my our pages for many years. I've been through several office supply printers that have failed for one reason or another, all have left me feeling.....cheated. They cost to buy and to keep ink in them. Then no one will repair them as they are considered "not worth to money."

After the last failure I decided to look for a commercial unit, finally found one at a auction that featured only office printers, copiers and other assorted electronic equipment. They had many of the HP950 series printers available. All of which included the service history on each one. I picked out the two that I was willing to bid on and got a number in my head that I was not to pass (400.00), when the moment arrived I got the nicest unit there for a cost of just over 125.00! The biggest problem was getting the behemoth unit in my truck and then upstairs to my stamp room.

That was almost seven years ago now. It has served me and my family faithfully. I have it connected to the wi-fi making it available to everyone in the house to print on copy paper and only to me in the Minkus size pages. I have no idea how many pages I've printed in total but the Minkus size I have a pretty good idea. That is the most expensive part of the cost for album pages. I bought a two reams of 500 24" x 36" paper at EXPEDEX and had them cut it into the required 9.5" x 11.25 Minkus size yielding 5,000 pages. I don't remember the price but it was way more than the initial investment on the printer. I'm down to about 1000 sheets left till I'm looking for more. By the way the toner is now showing 80% left.

For me punching holes is no problem as they are round. I adjusted a three hole unit to do the job, I just had to paint it to keep anyone else from trying to us it. I like the yellow!

Good luck!

I had a similar dilemma as my U.S. collection is in Harris Liberty albums and the non U.S. material is in Harris Citations. Harris pages are 9" x 12".

A couple of years ago I purchased a HP Officejet Pro 7740 wide format printer. The printer and scanner bed will accommodate up to ledger size (11" x 17") paper. It has two paper trays so both letter size (8" x 11") and a larger size paper can be always loaded and it handles card stock fine. I have a wireless connection to it which is very convenient. It is typically priced at $299 and I bought mine during a $100 off sale. It has not yet been used heavily but will get a work out this winter when I hope to spend more time inside and with my collection. For big print runs I might still take the job to a copy center, but I really like being able to print out a few pages whenever I need, and I can now start scanning my album pages.

I was surprised that the HP was not included in the posted PC Mag article, but so far it has worked well for my needs.

I used to use a Canon 4550 but that died a long time ago. Any Tabloid (11x17 or bigger) printer will do it.

A while back, I bought a HP 7612 but found that it DRINKS INK as fast as you put it in. Now I just use it as a scanner and fax. I have tried a couple other HP's but they too drink ink or were substandard for fine line graphics during testing.

At one time they made great printers and I have some older ones that just keep going (HP4Plus and HP4700DTN) but I think HP got out of the printer business and into the Ink business.

I tried a Brother Workforce printer that Staples had a great price on but the quality was terrible no matter what I did it was just sub standard.

So I am also looking for a suitable replacement. There are a couple Epson models that look interesting I just need to find one I can run a test on. Maybe my expectations are just too high but I expect them to meet or exceed the quality I get from my HP's, without drinking ink.

One other piece of advice I'd offer is: if you are looking to use any heavy card stock/paper weights, look for a printer that has a simple-straight paper path and does not take a winding path. Check the weight ratings in the specs.

Bearing in mind the range of costs, do these home-made versions actually run any cheaper than just buying blank pages from Amos?

False economy abounds and like many things in life you get what you pay for (especially with commodity things like paper, ink and consumer grade printers that run under $800).

I typically recommend refurbished quality laser printers; I have a Xerox color laser that is going on 20 years old and still cranks out good looking pages. While it was a $3000 printer new, I got a refurb for $500 when it was 2 years old. I think refurb is a viable option for a wide format quality printer.
Don

GeoffHa: I guess that depends on how many pages the user intends to print and other uses they may have for a printer.

Don: agreed I bought the HP4Plus (B&W Laser) new in 1991. I have replaced the fuser and the fan over the years. The HP4700DTN (color laser) was a barely used workgroup printer I found on eBay as a local pickup. It had two add-on paper trays but I added another one cuz I'm lazy and use a variety of papers for other things. Both were great investments.

I like lasers. They can sit unused for long times that can lead to ink drying out, heads to clog, etc.