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Sunday, February 1, 2015

Book binding

With all the projects that I have in mind and all the things that I need to remember to do I needed a notebook. I thought I will try my hand at binding a book and here is the result:
Denim bound book

Notes for next project

Clean pages

I am reasonably pleased with the outcome although I had to make some serious adjustments halfway through the process (see later). Below are the steps I followed to produce a denim bound book.
Main materials of a book
Folding each page
Clamping pages and adding glue - a thin cloth is also added

The casing of this book is made by cardboard. I used two pieces glued together at an angle (around 10 degree offset). This  is to provide a bit more strength as this cardboard bend much easier in one dimension - now not possible anymore.
Gluing cardboard pieces
Getting sizes for the casing

All the elements for the book
Casing done
Book without pages
Gluing the pages in

At this stage I found a mistake. After the pages was glued to the inside and the front and back pages were glued to the case the spine was a bit too wide. I thought this was how it was supposed to be but apparently it is not. I thus removed the text block (all the pages glued togehter) and added more pages - in effect doubling the amount of pages.
Case where text block was removed

After this things worked much better.
Second round of finishing everything
Final product - still slightly wet

I am impressed with the general feel and look of the book and will definitely do more book binding. For my next book I am going to use leather and wood and have an idea that, I think, will make it quite unique. I will post it once it is done ... or the attempt if it turns out to be a mere "experiment".

R&C

5 comments:

  1. Very cool. I plan on doing this following your post here. Any advice for a first time binder? What kind of glue did you use?

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    Replies
    1. This was my first time also. I used normal wood glue (PVA) and it seemed to have worked quite well. My main advice would be - just try it, it is often much easier than it looks.

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    2. You said you had to end up doubling the amount of pages, how many full pages did it require then? Also, what kind of fabric is that mesh netting?

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    3. In total I used aroud 60 A4 pages (folding them means that the book has around 120 pages). The mesh netting is just a bit of cloth netting (something that you would find on innner curtains or decorative table cloth). I suggest this video for some ideas and tips: http://youtu.be/afeLi1KbyYg

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