Hand Sealer

When a hand sealer is the right machine

It suits the bench where sealing is one of several jobs rather than the job. The operator is packing, weighing, labelling and sealing, and the sealer is used dozens of times a day, not hundreds.

• The bag can be held square with one hand while the other presses the bar.
• The count is in dozens rather than hundreds, or comes in bursts through the day.
• The bench is small and a machine that needs a bay of its own would not fit.
• The unit is starting out, and the volume that would justify a band sealer has not arrived yet.

When it is the wrong one, and what to buy instead

We would rather say this before you order than after. Three situations turn a hand sealer into a daily irritation.

The first is a bag that needs both hands. A filled poly bag of loose goods, a heavy liner, or a large flat bag will not stay square while one hand comes off it. That is a foot-operated machine - the pedal seals and both hands stay on the bag.

The second is volume. A hand sealer used continuously through a shift is tiring for the operator and hard on the element, and the machine that is meant for that duty is the table top model.

The third is a queue. Once bags are waiting, no hand-operated machine catches up, and a continuous band sealer is the only honest answer.

The parts that wear, and why that matters when you buy

Every impulse machine has two consumables: the heating element and the PTFE strip that stops the film sticking to it. Both are ordinary wear items and both are cheap. What is not cheap is a machine whose element you cannot buy in six months.

So the question worth asking any supplier is not what the machine costs but whether the element and the strip will still be available. Ask it of us too - we will tell you which models we hold parts for.

What to send with your enquiry

Three things, and it takes a minute: the width of your widest bag measured flat across the mouth, what the bag is made of, and roughly how many you seal in a day. A photograph of the bag is worth more than a description of it.

With that we can tell you which format fits, what seal length to ask for, and whether the machine you were about to buy is the right one.

What it costs to run, which nobody asks

The purchase price of a bench sealer is small enough that buyers rarely look past it, and then they meet the running cost by accident.

There are two consumables and both are cheap: the heating element and the PTFE strip that keeps film off it. What is not cheap is downtime. A bench that seals every order and has no spare element sitting in a drawer will lose a day to a part worth very little, and it will lose it on the day it is busiest, because that is when elements fail.

Power is negligible - an impulse machine draws current only during the cycle, which is a fraction of a second per bag. There is nothing running when the bench is idle and nothing to switch off at night.

So the honest running cost of a hand sealer is one element and one strip a year for most benches, plus whatever a lost afternoon costs you. Ask a supplier for the price of both parts before you buy the machine - it is a better question than any specification.