It is in Europe, a Belgian company.

Excellent idea, Stephanie! Thank you for the well thought out description on how to do this!

I have used the classic/half letter size planner since 1996 or so. I started with Franklin planner systems but once I realized their pages didn’t really suit me, I started to make my own. I bought a paper cutter, and figured out how to make the necessary adjustments to my printer. There are a lot of places online with free or low cost templates and inserts. My favorite, diyplanner, is gone now, but Scattered Squirrel a good resource. I’ve also found decent fountain pen friendly paper on Amazon. The Office Depot Tul system has great paper that is also fountain pen friendly. Don’t give up on your Classic/Junior/Half letter notebook.

very interesting article! I love discbound planners and fillers.

In the UK we have Pepper and Cute as the main brand making discbound planners and they are very cute and are launching new fillers quite often.

On the Amazon Website for the “Fromthenon Mushroom Discbound Hole Punch Puncher Handheld DIY Paper Cutter with Ruler for Disc Ring Planner” the second image gives very important information missing from this article and 95% of the web catalogs I found. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085Q9HFSS?ref=vse_pfo_vwdp)

It says “Please mind the hold size before order.” Their punch makes the 1/4″ mushroom hole with a 0.15″/4mm stem and .27″ /7mm total depth. That is also what my new large staples Arc punch produces.

Unfortunately, all my existing sheets were punched with my “happy planner” punch which has a 3/8″ hole (0.25″/6mm stem and .375/9mm stem.) My existing sheets are now incompatible with my new system (newly punched paper sticks out 1/8 inch on the right.)

I like the deeper (3/8″) punch better for large disc (many page) notebooks since the top and bottom sheets tend to slip out with the shorter (1/4″) mushroom hole.

Technical information on Levinger’s site and on Amazon makes no mention of this important distinction. I want to punch more sheets at a time but maybe stuck with my 3-5 sheet happy planner punch.

I mostly use half-letter though I have one letter sized book. I have the punch so I can make my own sketchbooks. I can add different kinds of paper in the same cover.

My post from 2016 on how I make a sketchbook: https://redharparts.wordpress.com/2016/07/13/disc-bound/

Thanks to Allan below, I’ve now learned of Atoma! They developed it in the 40s and had the patent until the mid-90s! Then Rollabind came in with their patents. I don’t know if Atoma ever had much of a presence in the US Market around then?

Thanks! I can’t believe I forgot Atoma!