An apparatus to facilitate the binding of sheets using heat activated adhesives, with the sheets having coatings that resist binding. A stack of sheets is abraded prior to binding, with the apparatus gripping the stack so that a stack end to be bound is exposed. An abrading head containing a plurality of reciprocating pins is positioned so that pins can be controlled to repeatedly strike the stack end along the length of the end. This action results in abrading the stack end thereby producing relatively long fibers from the coated sheets that absorb the binder strip adhesive thereby achieving a strong bind notwithstanding the adhesive-resistant coating.