Swingline Stack-and-Shred Red 60-Sheet Shredder The Swingline Stapler became an office staple in the 20th Century for its stylish look and ease of operation to clip together paper sheets into a contiguous document at the flick of a wrist. And apparently, the iconic Red Stapler continues to adorn many desks, but just not the desks of our Law Technology News' staff in San Francisco. Now ACCO Brands Corp. hopes the Swingline Stack-and-Shred 60-Sheet Shredder follows its stapler into every office.
I admit that one of my favorite devices in the office is a shredder, but my least favorite chore is standing in front of one and feeding it paper. So I look for a shredder that supports a fast, simultaneous, multi-sheet input with an industrial-sized motor that does not easily overheat from continuous use. Then someone brought the Swingline Stack-and-Shred to my attention.
TEST DRIVE
I confronted a Swingline Stack-and-Shred Red 60-sheet personal shredder, opened the top lid of the shredder as if I was opening a cooler of beer, and placed 60 sheets of paper onto a flat surface that fits up to 60 sheets of 8.5 x 11 paper. The flat surface is broken with sheet rollers that pull paper along a path to the shredder. I closed the lid and the Swingline rollers brought the sheets of paper into contact with the shredder. I walked away and let the shredder do its business. No more standing and feeding a shredder for me. See Figure 1.
Figure 1:The Swingline Stack-and-Shred Red shredder shown here has a top-loading design and easily fits beneath a desk; the 4-gallon waste bin has a clear window in the front of the unit to view shred capacity.
It took the Swingline shredder approximately 15 minutes to shred the 60 pages in a cross-cutting motion that resulted in 300 shreds per sheet, which filled up the 4-gallon receptacle beneath the shredder. After eleven minutes of continuous operation from the automatic top-loader, the shredder stopped once to cool its motor for 2 to 3 minutes. When I tested the shredder's speed, it dispatched between 9 (8.25 feet per minute) and 10 (9.16 feet per minute) sheets of 20 lb. paper per minute. Your mileage may vary depending on paper size and weight.
The shredder has a published duty cycle of ten minutes of continuous use, then 40 minutes to cool before it continues operation. When I tested the unit's continuous operation from the manual feed, the shredder overheated after approximately 5 minutes, stopped to cool in two minutes and then resumed operation for another three minutes before it seized up for over 60 minutes. The motor, however, had been previously working and the unit was not tested from a cold start. I only give my car the benefit of a cold start nowadays.
The Swingline has a manual feed input atop the shredder, but it is limited to 5 sheets of paper or one credit card at a time. CD or DVD discs are not supported, and neither are heavy-duty staples. So if you shred more than documents or credit cards, you will need to seek a more robust shredder.
The automatic top-loading feature is the reason to purchase the Stack-and-Shred, but it too has some limitations. The top loader supports 8.5 x 11-inch paper or smaller, so if your law office uses legal-size paper this is not your shredder. The top-loader also jams when I attempted to shred folded or crinkled paper, but it handled a mix of paper sizes, from 8.5 x 11- to 6 x 9-inch steno paper to 4 x 8-inch sheets from a reporter's notebook without jamming. And that included some sheets that were affixed with staples and paperclips.
The personal shredder is quiet when in operation. I could shred documents without interrupting a conversation. But when I did, the top-loading feature of the Swingline became the topic of conversation.
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